The irony is not lost on me

I have mentioned here before that my kids go to a great school. A small school. In the jungle.

I'm not kidding.

And one of the things about this school is that - because it is so small - the parents are very involved. Not involved like hassling the teachers and sitting there eating snack every day with their 6 year old because they just can't cut the cord. Involved like teaching fun electives, helping with repairs and maintenance, and cleaning. If we want a clean school house, we gotta clean it. And some parents don't think they need to. Or just don't want to. Or would never DREAM to do somehting so BENEATH them.

Obviously, I don't have those notions about myownself. I hate to clean, and I am awful at cleaning, and I don't clean my own house - but I am also part of a community (and to clarify, this is not a COMMUNE, thanks - it's a community. We may be in the jungle, but we wear pants most of the time and no wife-swapping is involved and we don't have a religious leader/guru/swami and we don't drink KoolAid and clearly I don't know what goes on at communes but I don't need to worry about it because this isn't one). AS I WAS SAYING I am part of a community, and this community includes a bathroom and my kids use it and there is no budget and no staff and so......

So I volunteered to go first. Take one for the team. Clean the bathroom and kitchen, every day, for 2 weeks.

Since I don't clean MY OWN bathroom and kitchen every day, it's interesting that I would take this task on. And trust me, I was not thrilled. But hey. Do what ya gotta do. I'd rather get it over with and be done with it. And if "it" is cleaning a (for all intents and purposes) public bathroom, so be it. Or "it". Whatever. ANYWAY my point is despite my deficiencies in keeping house, I can still clean a damn bathroom, and I did. I cleaned it every day. E V E R Y D A Y. And let me tell you something:

For as many parents that avoided eye contact when they saw me cleaning, and behaved as though I was the hired help, or doing something they would NEVER consider doing - like I was a fucking untouchable or something (because so help me one kid stopped to say hello and her mother literally grabbed her elbow and dragged her along as though I was lying in a gutter mumbling to myself and reaching for her ankle) for just as many parents who acted like total assholes just as many parents said "Thank You". And some of them didn't even say it like they were thanking "the help". They sounded sincere. They sounded like they had done this exact job before, and knew they would be doing it again soon.

And a few of them even commented on how CLEAN it was, with me doing the cleaning. So much CLEANER than it had ever been before.

And I laughed. Oh, I laughed. Oh man. That's some funny shit. My house is so disgusting I am paying to have someone dig me out....and apparently I am the fucking ARCHANGEL ON HIGH (well, yes......I guess I would be) of cleaning.

But alas, today is my last day of cleaning, and then I am moving on to driving carpools and repairing things that are broken and teaching a class and repairing the sofa that got torn and there is just SO MUCH TO DO in a commune - I mean community. If you'll excuse me I had better go find my pants. And my husband.