Downgraded living conditions

My house used to be immaculate. Okay, maybe not immaculate, but I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have my mother-in-law and maybe a distant relative of Martha Stewart come over for dinner unexpectedly.

Ever since nursing school, let’s just say there has been a steady deterioration in what I have come to feel is acceptable living conditions. While in school, I declared this state of disorganization and lack of adherence to a rigid cleaning schedule would end as soon as I earned my license and started working regularly.

I’m not sure exactly what happened or when I began to, not only throw in the towel, but shred it and dump it in the garbage. Hey, at least it went into the garbage and not on the floor.

Maybe it started when we bought the house. Every new home owner is so excited about buying a house that they can’t see the forest for the trees. We wanted to stop renting and have something to call our own.

I’ll tell you right now, there are a few benefits to renting that can’t be overlooked, the first of which is that you don’t have to pay for every little thing that goes wrong. That is a job for the owner, poor sap. Don’t get me wrong, they are making money off you, but there can be some major problems with a place, believe me.

Also, you most likely will not just keep jamming your closets with junk and memorabilia that you can’t bear to part with because you certainly don’t want to move all that stuff next time you pack your whole life and go to the next better place which has a pool instead of a neighbor with 6 pit bulls in his backyard.

Finally, and most important, that dream home which needed a little TLC that some sucker paid “X” amount of dollars for in 2005 is only worth about half that amount now. This means you aren’t daydreaming of running away to Bora Bora and hiding from your mortgage company at this very moment.

Being a non-renter, I come home from my shifts beat from a day that probably stretched about twelve 1/2 hours. I fall asleep on the couch and my husband tells me to go to bed. When I get to my days off, I don’t feel like cleaning that deep-down clean like I used to do.

My house doesn’t smell. Okay, maybe it does smell if apathy has an aroma and there is an odor tied into desperately hoping for a dishwasher in a home where running the dryer and oven at the same time trips the breaker. They don’t test that in a home inspection. Electrical work is on our wish list if Bora Bora doesn’t pan out.

We also have ants now. Yes, ants have moved in and we are battling a problem bigger than us. I’d like to claim 150,000 dependents on our taxes and fix all our problems including those bothersome pests. We’ll tent the house and bomb everything inside with insecticide and then rip out the kitchen.

If the IRS is reading this, disregard the above paragraph. Also, don’t show up unannounced for dinner because that annoys me these days.

For now, we clean the surfaces and fold the laundry and keep cramming our belongings into closets we’ve outgrown. If you want to see us, kindly invite us over or invite us out because our house is currently off limits. Thanks for your cooperation.