Whenever one of our kids has a baby kid, my wife has to rush out and buy an airplane ticket and jet south. She is usually gone for a week or two while I'm left home to try to earn some money to pay for the plane ticket. I also have to fend for myself. Because of this situation, our house gets a deep cleaning every time my wife heads south to the maternity ward.
The deep cleaning occurs on the day before, or (sometimes in an emergency) the day of when she uses her return ticket. At the last calculated possible second, I kick it into high gear and start the deep cleaning. I rush around and gather up large armloads of clothes that have begun accumulating since she left. I throw portions in the washer, huck a couple a cups of soap or bleach or whatever is handy on the top of the load and hit the start button. Then, I close the lid and sit on it until the water softens up the mound and the lid will stay closed on its own.
This process is repeated several times until the bedroom and bathroom look similar to what it looked like when she left. At least clothes wise. Then I start on the dishes. In the bedroom.
I really need her to get me a sink stopper so I can pile up some water in the sink and have it stay there. This is because when I start hauling the used food tools (spoons, forks, tv dinner trays, ice cream scoopers, many a plate, glasses galore, etc. etc.) and throw them in the sink, I need water that will stick around for awhile. I am an expert on many things including the stick-on characteristics of edible materials when left to dry on aforementioned food tools. I have found that you can't go straight to the dishwasher or you'll do a cycle and end up with the same culinary characteristics you had before you threw them in. I have also discovered when measured in hours or even a day or two after initial consumption, pre-dishwasher food can be scraped off a utensil in a matter of a minute or so.
However, anything over a week and you have a problem. This is why, during my deep cleaning, I need to be able to throw plates in the sink on the day before Michele arrives and have the water stay. If they soak for at least 23 hours, I can then do the dishwasher thing and look like a homecoming king when she arrives. However, we only have two sinks which during this last go-around was not adequate.
Being the inventor that I am, I discovered I don't need two sinks. In fact, I don't even need one. Why? Cause we have a master sink, commonly known as a bathtub. I discovered this when our sink was piled up to the cupboard just above it and I still had a few armloads to go. Since the bathroom is between the bedroom and the dishwasher, this made for an awesomely handy stopover soaking joint. I usually hate washing dishes but this bathtub exercise made it quite fun, especially when I added some bubble bath.
There you have it. Our house gets deep-cleaned every time one of our daughters decides to calve. My wife is a good housekeeper but I wish she put as much effort into the deep cleaning aspect as I.
