The Ravages of Spontaneous Degeneration

I’m living a domestic nightmare.

Little piles of harmless clutter have gradually turned into lurching Stonehenge precipices that threaten to avalanche and bury my living room.

Friends write finger notes to me in the dust on my coffee table.

My kitchen sink is evolving back into the frightening pit it once was when excavating down through layers of left-behind refuse revealed how many potatoes I peeled for Easter dinner in 2006.

Shudder. I feel so .. so… helpless.

It all started the day after my friend Teresa, who has faithfully organized and cleaned my house once a month for the past five years, left me.

Sniff. Yes, she left me.

Somehow – what was she thinking? – Teresa decided that her hubs being promoted to a new job in another state was good enough reason to leave me to the ravages of Spontaneous Degeneration.

You remember Spontaneous Degeneration, right? The Coty Near-Fact of Science I shared in my book, Too Blessed to be Stressed?  Well, here then – let me remind you:

My theory of Spontaneous Degeneration declares that when left in an unnaturally clean state, matter will spontaneously atrophy into indiscriminate disarray.

Yup. You’ve seen it happen.

A hour after you triumphantly finish slaving over a clean house, mold begins sprouting on shiny faucets, green slime oozes from the vegetable crisper, tiny hairs creep up from the drain and embed themselves in the bathroom sink. Dust bunnies proliferate for a closet reunion.

Black dirt erupts like lava from the carpet nap, clothing magically appears on every piece of sit-able furniture, dirty panties peek from behind hampers just in time for the dog to proudly present them to dinner guests.

You know it’s true. And sadly, I am completely defenseless against Spontaneous Degeneration. I have not been blessed with cleaning skills. None.

I am NOT Martha Stewart. Or even the biblical Martha who zipped around cleaning, cooking, and organizing when the Son of God came to visit (Luke 10: 38-42).

On the best of days, I’m neat, but not immaculate. Orderly, but not obsessed. Clean enough for health, dirty enough for happiness.

But I’m in the middle of writing a book (the Too Blessed to be Stressed Daily Devotional, scheduled to release in 2017) that requires my undivided attention if I’m to make my publisher’s deadline. So on the clean house continuum, these are not my best of days.

So I’ve come up with a plan. I shall wear really, really dark sunglasses and leave the lights off. Spouse and I will don shin guards and helmets to avoid injury from the refuse piles and we’ll dine out every night at the homes of friends and relatives until they never want to see us again.

So don’t expect to be invited to my house anytime soon. But I’ll be calling you!