Good Housekeeping?

Last week, I felt amazing. Life was wonderful, and everything was right with the world. This was because I was spending most of my time sitting in a farmhouse kitchen in rural France, watching the sunlight glinting off the Loire and knowing that didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do. It was bliss. Then I had to come back.

My parents were kind enough to drop me off on the way back from Dover ferryport. When my mum asked if she could come in to use the bathroom however, my heart began to race, my palms began to sweat, and knees began to tremble. Despite my exhaustion from the day's travel, I was suddenly filled with the urge to run as far and as fast in the other direction as possible.

Even in the modern world, it seems that women tend to be burdened with the housekeeping. In fact, it seems that once a woman is a fully-fledged adult, she apparently starts to be judged on her home. I have internalised this to quite some degree, and will always clean up for visitors in case they go home and decry my hideous squat of a house afterwards. I will clean especially thoroughly for my pathologically obsessed, hypercritical (about cleanliness, at least) mother, who can see pieces of dust which even electron microscopes would have trouble picking up. It will come as no surprise that my mother believes that those who do not come up to her standards live in squalor - me very much included.

Nor is she shy about 'helping' with the situation. One day last year, she went into my kitchen to put the kettle on, and decided to start spraying surfaces with Dettol and de-crumbing under the toaster. She couldn't understand why I was so insulted. Once when I was at university she came to visit, and the first thing she said as she stepped into my hallway was "Hm. You haven't vacuumed."

On this occasion, though, my fears seemed to be unjustified. Even though I was utterly convinced she'd refuse to leave until I'd let her fumigate the entire flat, everything was fine. "Wow", I said to my housemate, "she's finally learned to keep her thoughts to herself!"

The next day she called me offering to send me some Flash Bathroom and Kitchen cleaner.