I did something incredibly mundane

Never Done: I vacuumed the bedroom

I hate to vacuum. It requires more patience than was doled out when the gods (I've been watching a lot of Battlestar Gallactica lately) were giving away attributes. I especially hate vacuuming carpet. Which is the only time it makes any sense to vacuum anyhow, because why even vacuum wood or linoleum when you could use the Swiffer Sweeper, which is a miracle of a floor-cleaning apparatus? Or a broom, which is pretty miraculous in its own right. I like sweeping -- it's quick and easy and effective. I hate mopping, which just seems ineffective, and I usually end up on my hands and knees scrubbing the trouble spots, which often turns into the whole floor. But most of all, I hate to vacuum.

In my household, I do the lion's share of the housework, which isn't ideal, and it isn't the goal, but it is true. I do 95% of the dusting. (I actually think I might do 100% of the dusting, but I also think that saying that is a good way to get into an fight, and since I don't mind dusting, it's not something I want to start a fight over.) I probably do 75% of the bathroom and kitchen cleaning (not including dishes, which I think get done pretty equally around here.) I am pretty good at cleaning in fits and starts -- doing a room when I need a break from writing or while my lunch is cooking. But I almost never vacuum, and until tonight I had never vacuumed the bedroom in this apartment. This bedroom with wall-to-wall carpeting. Light gray wall-to-wall carpeting that picks up every piece of fuzz, lint, and dust that comes near it.

Now, this feels dangerously close to airing dirty laundry, but it's real and I think it's worth writing about. A couple of weeks ago, Josh mentioned that he was going to clean the floors in the apartment. So I picked up all my stuff, and got it all ready for the big clean. I also took that opportunity to clean other stuff -- I did the dusting, I cleaned the bathroom, I did a big load of recycling. And by the end of the night, I noticed that he hadn't actually cleaned the floors. And the next day I again noticed that it hadn't happened. And then I noticed he had vacuumed the rugs in the living room, but hadn't done any of the other floors. And then I asked him about it and he said he was going to do it. And by then I had let my stuff pile up on the floor again, and so I picked it all up again. And then more days went by. And finally -- you know where this is going because I already told you what I did that I had never done -- finally I decided to stop waiting, and to just vacuum the bedroom.

I hated it the whole time, but I wasn't angry or upset while doing it. I think I was more resigned. But I did notice that as soon as I finished, Josh started to assiduously clean the kitchen and the bathroom -- including, finally, the floors. Maybe it was because he felt bad that I ended up doing the vacuuming, or maybe I just gave him an opportunity to notice that he had the time to clean, but either way, it seems to be helpful that I stepped outside of my comfort zone and did the damned vacuuming.