Sweeping The Lawn and Other Excercises in Domestic Futility

I woke up to three three dead plants, a soggy loo, and a generally disasstisfied family. I couldn't see our kitchen counters: they're covered in school supplies and last night's supper muck.

By ten o'clock (still morning) I had a rolicking headache and had threatened a complaining child (the one who, just last night, spent a solid ten minutes making a case for why he is no longer a "child") within an inch of his schooling life. The words "boarding school" careened around inside my head but, thankfully, never escaped my lips. By eleven o'clock he was out in the backyard working off his attitude in a most tedious and ungratifying manner.

I cannot find the replacement part that I need to repair the (borrowed!!) power washer that I broke.

Moments ago I discovered that the dogs, in silent protest over the recent grooming they received (hairless dogs are a beautiful thing), have been digging ENORMOUS holes in the backyard tree and flower beds. Too lazy to trek all the way to the shed for a rake, I just grabbed a nearby broom and did an expletive-laden sweep of dirt back into offending hole.

I find myself unable to tap my creative resources to come up with yet another Phys. Ed. 20 "long-term objective." Even though my high school lad "kind of need(s) it right now." It's tough to be ingenious when the tap AND the fridge are leaking, the floor's sticking, the laundry's piling, the dog doots are smelling, and there are males everywhere.

But at 12:20 (insert soundtrack of otherwordly music here and find yourself bathed in a holy glow), with a mess of peanut butter, tuna, and old soup making it's slow march across every surface that is not covered by a book or a drawing or a school list, I cracked open my first ever box of the Mr. Clean "Magic Eraser."

Oh yes. I did.

I was skeptical. So skeptical. And I was cranky. Very cranky. But a friend had generously dropped some by for me to try, and they were sitting right there (smushed between the marker bin and the tea pot), so I had nothing to lose.

And now? All wrongs have been righted. ALL wrongs. A lawn that needs sweeping? Who cares! I can clean scuff marks off of the baseboards! Scuff marks, I tell you! A half-hearted little scrub of the fridge has the door shining ~ sparkly new! The footprint left on the front door by firefighters (Yes. That was two years ago.)? Gone! I've tried everything to remove that mark...and now, thanks to Mr. Clean, it's gone.

Magic. My sons can attest to the transformation I'm undergoing as we speak, "Look," Jamy said just moments ago, "the little cleany thingy is making Mom squeak." They're mocking me, I know, but I just don't care because, in the days ahead, the smudges and smears and gashes that have been adding to the befuddlement of my haggardly housewifey brain will all be gone. 

And you can bet that the next Mr. Clean claims "magic" as part of their results, I'll buy into it. My deepest hope, in this domestic moment, is that the next product on their list is a wand. A magical, magical wand. One flick of the stick and all will be righted. Clothes, hair, walls, loos, dogs. All. We're counting on you, Mr. Clean.