Housecleaning is for real men...

or at least it is for Jonas more than it is for me. Yesterday I found that out the hard way. We found out yesterday that we were having an overnight guest that night! With no forewarning, Jonas had no time to clean the house which meant it was either i give it a go or hope and pray that the guest doesn't get eaten by the creepy large dust bunnies. Usually the house is kept under control but with the heavy racing schedule recently there was no time for cleaning.

I dusted all the furniture and five knick-knacks, scrubbed toilets, countertops and sinks. But then it came time for my least favorite chore - vaccuuming. I had gone my whole adult life without ever owning one of those things just so i could avoid using it. The first couple of rooms were a bitch. The handle was so short that i had to hunch over to make contact with the floor. But then something magical happened when i accidentally dropped it - the handle got longer! Apparently there is some adjustability with these things. With the hunching behind, i continued with my vaccuming a bit more comfortably.

With the whole upstairs done, it was time to get into the corners. I saw on TV a few times that the handle can pull off, leaving you with a vaccuum tube so i gave it a try. succees. But then the damage started. When you stick a tube into dark corners where you have no view, you can suck more than just the bunnies up. That is exactly what i did. I had to stop every few seconds to pull random items out such as stuck electrical cords, curtains, wallpaper. Good thing Jonas will probably never see the damage as it is out of sight.

Next project was the stairs. It would be interesting if they could ever take a poll on the percentage of stair flyers that occur while vaccuuming stairs. Between the oversized cord, the powerful sucking of the vaccuum that decides for you which direction it will head, and the balancing act of carrying the handle in one hand an the heavy box in the other, i'd expect the rate of disaster to be high. Although i survived it this time around, not everything in the house was meant to survive.

Last room was the kitchen. Just when i got to the last corner, BAM, the vaccuum led me right into a large bottle of Gluhwein (red spiced wine). That thing shattered into a zillion pieces while the blood red liquid oozed in every direction - across to the cabinets, under the refridgerator, and through the doorway to the basement. Shit. Paper towels werent enough and i had already been yelled out for using kitchen towels to clean up messes on the floor. So instead i just stood there watching the puddle slowly inhabit much of the kitchen floor space. Finally I remembered that there were "outdoor" towels perfect for the job! I pulled the heavy wooden shutter open, unlocked the door to the backyard and grabbed the towels. The hardest part to clean was probably the stairs and cellar. It had streamed down the stairs and onto the concrete cellar floor.

Thankfully my cleanup job was enough to kill the "alcoholic" smell that permeated the house. Either that or our house guest was too polite to call me on it. I suppose Jonas will take me off house duty for a few more years before he agrees to give me another try. Or at least i hope.

On a highly tangental note, my latest race report from last Sunday's Roubaix World Cup should be posted on Cyclocross Magazine's site either today or tomorrow, so be sure to check it out!