Xfresh Archive: Cleaning Day

Location: In the Proton, with Double Decker chips, a Mountain Dew and Ayah's laptop
Mood-of-the-day: Like a dirty shirt in a washing machine on 'SPIN'

The whole house's having a full blast vacuum suction in both floors so it's damn noisy. I borrowed my dad's Compaq to use outside to work on some last-minute project report. I know a gazillion others things we could do on the last Sunday of the month, except calling it Cleaning Day. Myself, I've just finished getting the Proton, Merce and Kenari all nice, shiny and squeaky-clean.

My mom's the one doing the vacuuming, wearing a cloth mask as well. She often claims that she had this sensitive reaction to dust, making her sneeze like an elephant with the flu. I bet she's the only person in the world who sneezes twice at once (ah-choo-ah-choo-choo!). She only takes a break for the Malaysian Idols.

My bro is doing the laundry. Sundays are the only days when he shed his fangs, horns, tail and trident to emerge from his depths of his dark coffin during actual daylight hours with a foul-smelling week's worth of his clothes. On some Sundays, he irons his fellow teammates jerseys as well as the rest of the family's good clothes. I forgot his the name of his football team but I supposed it had something to do with the fangs, horns, tail and trident.

My sis and bro-in-law takes care of the food and cleaning the windows (I'm not washing their cars!). I'm glad that they're Home, or else I'll be doing the windows as well and they always get us fast-food take-outs (A&W this week). They don't do much, since they only half-live here (the other half in with bro-in-law's family) and mom always fussed about bro-in-law's health (he's vacuumming the ground floor right now).

My lil' bro got the best job in the house; washing bathrooms. I dunno why he's complaining; there's only four toilets in the house and each is own by one or two people at any given week. It used to be my job, until I learned how to drive and he realized which end of the brush to stick the toilet into.

My dad's working on the garden. Now that he's retired, gardening to him is what html add-on is to me. There's always something every weekend. The latest addition is adding Home Centre-brought square stone slabs to make a pathway from the corner of the front door to the grassy backyard. He cuts out a piece of grass and adds the stones before watering them to even up the soil around it.

My cats are the only ones not doing any work around the house, though they are trying to do something. They're just running, zooming in and out of the house like they're high on sugar (they go crazy every time the vacuum turns on). They don't seem to mind the wet mud on the garden, though I hoped they stayed away from the living room (just been mopped).

Signed: *Ophie, now chasing both cats to whack them with the New Sunday Times for jumping around on the hood and bonnet with dreadfully brown muddy paws