A classic because I spent the day working on taxes, and the numbers erased most of the letters from my brain:
I don’t know how my neighbors keep such a clean house with such an impossibly small sponge. It’s about a third the size of the usual sponge, the normal-sized sponge which in my house is usually coated in something that looks like smooshed pasta or coffee grounds. Why nobody around here ever thinks to wipe that stuff off the sponge is a mystery. But at my neighbors’ house, it’s not even an issue.
Recently, I was in my neighbors’ house daily to feed their cat, the guinea pig and the fish and to generally make sure nothing died. Lucky for me, one of their fish decided to check out just two days before I was to pet-sit, so I didn’t have to spend the entire week looking for an identical fish.
Anyhow, I went to the kitchen sink to clean out the cat bowl when I found this silly little sponge. I looked around at the spotless counter, the fingerprint-free fridge and the shiny stove, and I wondered how they do it. How do they keep their kitchen so mess-free? How do they keep everything so neat and clean – from the dust-free living room to the clutter-less everything? How do they do it all with that dumb little sponge?
To keep my house clean, I require three sponges, all of them quite a bit larger than my neighbors’ Hobbit-friendly sponge. Well, I need two of them to make up for the third, which is always covered in smooshed pasta and coffee grounds. But I keep those two plenty busy by using them to wipe up everything from strewn sesame seeds to cup-bottom-shaped rings of milk. A little sponge just wouldn’t handle the mess that is sometimes my kitchen. A little sponge would be overwhelmed by the sesame seeds, among other things.
I’ve seen my neighbors eat, and they’re not necessarily any neater than we are. And yet somehow, that teeny little sponge works for them. Or maybe, they’re hiding a jumbo sponge under the sink, and the next time they go away, I’m going to find it and leave it by the sink before I leave.
