The bourgeois dust bunnies
22/01/2014
There you go. My bourgeois confession. This is what happens when you set yourself the task of writing domestic comics for a week. I didn’t actually get a cleaner until I was working with 3 children, if that makes it any better… My mum also had a cleaner when we were young. Her name was Mrs Barnett and we used to dread the day that she came. My mother would make us clean with the same threat as I now give. After she’d cleaned and ironed, she’d sit at the table with my mother drinking tea and telling stories about her Cyril and the holidays they were going to take in their caravan. I don’t drink tea with Catherine, although she does give us Christmas presents and I try and wish her happy Chinese New Year in my very bad Mandarin.
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LET ME BE FRANK 
I greatly approve of you having a cleaner – you’re spending time doing things that you like better, and which I for one think are more worthwhile, AND you’re helping the economy – or at least you’re providing income for your cleaner. We have been doing a big tidy up of our over-stuffed little house and we’re almost at the point where I think we’re clean enough for a cleaner!
I love teasing my friends who have cleaners about cleaning beforehand. It’s hilarious but terrible at the same time….did you know the other phrase for ‘dust bunnies’ is ‘slut’s wool’? According to the Urban Dictionary ‘…Before ‘slut’ became common-usage for a woman of promiscuous temperament it was also used to describe a slovenly girl or woman who was untidy or did not clean her house.’ I like referring to the ‘slut’s wool’ under the beds at our house – people always look politely mortified. I’m not sure how you’d draw ‘slut’s wool’ – bunnies are definitely the safer beg for a comic 😉
Having helped my Dad tidy other people’s gardens and clean their houses I can say that it’s not the most fun thing in the world to clean up after others but if you get paid for it, it’s OK. It certainly helped me financially on various occasions. Given that NZ women spend on average twice as long on unpaid labor as men, I’d say getting a cleaner is a very sensible decision as Helen R suggests and it means someone else is getting some money in their pocket too. Better than you doing it for free and having arguments to boot!