Toilet Paper Faux Pas

Well, well, well. One day of family complete and another to go. Christmas Eve was filled with children watching Santa as he traveled across the world courtesy of NORAD. They watched avidly as he moved from town to town to country to country. When he hit South America it was time to pack up the gifts and head home to await his arrival at their homes.

My, my how times have changed.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity. I cooked and cleaned and cooked and cleaned all in preparation for the hoards of family descending on our quiet home. It is hard to anticipate every place that people will look to see what kind of housekeeper you are. At least the days of regularly wearing white gloves in polite society has passed. White gloves in my house would mean I could not pass muster for some of my pickier relatives.

While I do rush around to make sure the house is as clean as it can possibly be given the general lack of attention it receives most days, I am not overly concerned any longer about being judged solely on my house-cleaning skills. If I die tomorrow someone will find dust balls under the bed. It will not kill me as I will already be dead.

Just a little short story from the days when it did matter overly much to me how my house looked. My grandmother-in-law had visited once and I caught her cleaning my stove while I ran to the store. The next time she visited I determined there would not be one dust ball, one grease spot, one place where she could run her white gloves or stick her nose to find a problem.

All seemed to be going well, she seemed rather miffed that she could not surreptitiously find some ditty of dirt. I again had to leave the house for a short period, but felt I could do so safely. I returned to find the over and the refrigerator pulled away from the wall with my grandmama busily cleaning.

On her next trip, I left some easy places for her to discover and clean.

Now, back to present day, Christmas and today's family.

All went well. We ate, opened presents and shared good times. Everyone finally headed home to their respective homes for sweet dreams of the presents-to-be. I did some last minute cleaning up and then made a stop in one of our bathrooms.... Only to discover the toilet roll was empty. I was mortified. Not only had I forgotten to put a back-up roll out within easy reach, I had forgotten to re-stock under the cabinet.

Now, before you think that I am over-reacting to missing toilet paper know that if you open certain closet doors in my house, things do not look as neat as the rest of the house. Oh no, I used my closets during visits as storage for all those things you don't want children to touch or see, for the stack of books that's normally by the bed, the clothes I didn't have time to fold from the washer. In other words, there is no telling what you might find if you went looking.

I can just hear the conversations that some must have had as they traveled home. "Do you know what she had in the walk-in closet in the bathroom?"

Unfortunately, I also forgot to re-stock the toilet paper in the other guest bathroom also. Luckily, the roll was not completely decimated although one more trip would have had someone searching through those closets.

Ah well, you can't think of everything. And if I was able to bring a little joy into someone's life by giving them something juicy to talk about for a short while, they have received an extra Christmas present.

Well, I'm off to clean out my closet and restock the toilet paper before the next batch of family arrives. Merry Christmas to you and all of your families! A special Merry Christmas to you Miss Etta. I hope Santa was extra special good to you this year.