Who knows what horror lurks?

I once knew a relatively affluent couple who lived in a relatively nice house who lost control of their belongings. Driving by, you’d never know what horrors lurked inside --- cartons, grocery sacks and garbage bags full of items that might come in handy sometime stacked to the ceiling and buttressed by every issue of every newspaper and magazine that ever had arrived or been bought by lot (to look through someday).

A canyon-like trail led from the sofa-recliner-television clearing where they lived and ate to the kitchen and back porch where tin cans, bottles and Cool Whip containers carefully washed after use were stored, empty cereal boxes stacked. The trail continued to a bathroom where because the tub/shower recess, too, was stacked to the ceiling, the couple --- who valued cleanliness --- spit-bathed in the basin. Never saw the downstairs bedroom where they slept (upstairs was inaccessible).

Eventually, rather than scoop out the old house, they built a nice new one next door and moved in. Shortly after that I moved, too, so I don’t know what happened there.

But I do recognize that pathology operating in myself now and then and, without funds or space to build a new house, face the need to move everything here and clean behind it. I don’t like to do this. There are so many other more entertaining things to do with time.

So for inspiration, I go to YouTube and watch old episodes of the British television series “How Clean Is Your House?” featuring Kim and Aggie. The introduction to an episode above will give you an idea of how it goes --- and I think there’s an American version of this program out there but I’ve not seen it. By the time each program is done, the heroic Kim and Aggie and their helpers have restored immaculate order. I recommend it --- but not immediately after lunch.

Now I’m going to go launder the sheets --- Kim and Aggie say you should do that once a week.