Crossed wires

I am not known for my neatness. While I am not a total slob, I adopt a fairly relaxed attitude towards household chores. Clean the bathroom? Eh - I'll do it tomorrow. Mop the floor? No one's inspecting for dust bunnies, what's the rush? Make my bed? Why bother? I'm just gonna sleep in it again in a few hours.

And so on.

Moreover, in my dorm, there are girls whose job it is to clean. They mop the floors of the common areas every morning at 6 am. They are responsible for wiping down every surface of the dorm, and they take their job seriously. My reasoning (until recently) was, maybe if I wait long enough, they will decide that in addition to cleaning the common areas, they will decide they want to clean my room as well!

Well, last Friday, my hopes appeared to be realized. On my way to my room after work, one of them stopped me, saying "Tomorrow morning, rest a bit, then in the afternoon we'll come in and clean." I contained my excitement long enough to say that tomorrow would be fine, then pranced off to my room, proud that my reluctance to clean had paid off.

On Saturday, I took their instructions to heart and lazed around my room for several hours before considerately vacating my room (to facilitate cleaning) and going to meet some friends. When I returned at 3:00 with my friend, I fully expected my room to be sparkling clean. Instead, one of the cleaning girls greeted me anxiously.

"You need to rest in your room so that we can clean," she said, careful to articulate every word.

Me, smiling: "Yes, yes, okay."

Her, again: "No, you need to rest so that we can clean."

Me, starting to look confused: "Yeeeesss..."

She shakes her head in exasperation. "You need to rest" (here she pretends to be gathering something) "so that we can clean" (she makes a fist and moves her arm up and down).

I look at my friend in confusion. She is laughing, and clears things up with: "You need put away your stuff so that they can paint."

Ohhhhhhhhh.

Dadgummit.

So anyway, instead of relaxing in my freshly cleaned room on Saturday afternoon, I frantically gathered all of my belongings and threw them into a suitcase so they would not get covered in paint.

Needless to say, my room was not cleaned. In fact, when they finally finished painting at around 9:00, my room was in worse shape than it started in. My bed had been taken apart and was left standing vertically in the middle of the room. The curtains had been taken down and were crumpled in a pile in the corner. My desk was covered in dust and paint, and my floor was covered in mud, dust, and paint. My bathroom, which was not painted, had been used as a storage area for other things that would not be painted. Such as chairs. And suitcases. Because the entire room reeked of paint, the considerate painters had opened the windows for ventilation. So now, not only was the room dirty and smelled bad, but it was also even colder than usual.

I was less than pleased.

To reconcile myself to the fact that a deep cleaning was clearly needed, and that no one would be doing it but me, I reminded myself that if I had in fact cleaned earlier, I would be all the more upset about the post-painting state of my room. So I guess I was right all along: being a slob does pay off.