If cleaning house were a matter of life or death my husband would be comatose and my children with foster parents while I wrote my plea for forgiveness in the piano’s dust. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, I know where I’m going in a handbasket.

I am convinced that “genetics” is the only possible explanation for women being able to keep their house looking like a commercial for HGTV. They have been encoded with the “clean” gene from birth. People born with the “I’d rather read a book, go hiking or have a root canal” gene are cursed with dust balls and guilt.

The times I have lifted a mop and slaved away to clean the drops from a month of menus, I am allowed only a moment of satisfaction. Once the floor is dry and the instruments of torture removed, I look down to see someone has christened the clean floor with pop droppings from the refrigerator to the sink then allowed the mess to clone freely in another direction. I see that my efforts are futile, and all motivation to keep a clean house recedes into my Godless recessive clean gene. The dishes and dust collect, the sweeper is in clean-saver mode and the kitchen floor begins to look like something Jackson Pollock would love.

It is when my house looks at its worst that a neighbor has to use the phone. What I wouldn’t give to be Samantha. With a twitch and a snap the mess would be gone. I pray the neighbor has blinders and seeks only to find my phone. I pray they see my mess as a poignant backdrop for their misery. I pray they have the same recessive gene.

Once they depart, I become consumed by guilt over the state of the household. I begin the thankless job of cleaning, mopping and wishing that JUST ONCE these efforts would be appreciated by a neighbor in need-preferably one who has slipped on a floor only rodents could love.