I have finally discovered the secret to keeping a clean house, and that is to keep your children and husband from entering it. It works like a charm, but they’ve been banging on the front door for 15 minutes now, and at some point I’m going to have to let them back in. I just wish I could wait until Pesach before I do so; it’ll make things a lot easier, because frankly, cleaning the house while they are in it is like brushing your teeth while eating cookies.
Pesach. It shouldn’t come as a shock, because it’s written into the calendar and everything, and it comes by once a year, every year, but it always sort of does surprise me, anyway. And then I look at my house with new eyes, and those new eyes see crumbs, crumbs, everywhere, help, how in the world am I going to do this?
I like to think that I keep a clean house. (I also like to think that I speak a perfect Hebrew, but anyone I have ever spoken to in that language knows that’s hysterical.) But when I begin to clean for Pesach, the sheer amount of work that I have cut out for me is always shocking. How in the world did crumbs get into the LEGO? The top of the sefarim shrank? Was someone sitting up there and eating a sandwich? How would that even work?
People say that dust is not chametz, and they are right, of course, but how can you tell what is essence of skin cells (You do know that’s what most dust is made up of, right? Sorry.) and what is essence of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich? And how do I keep my house in a state of constant cleanliness so that Pesach is not quite so shocking or daunting when all of these kids who insist that they live in the house too want to come inside?
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