Cleaning Trance

In November of 2007, we were still in the midst of getting our Eva Street home ready to sell. We propelled ourselves through an intense period of long days spent packing possessions, getting rid of excess baggage, and sprucing up the old house. I got in the habit of cleaning stuff that I hadn't much bothered with before -- baseboards, corners of closets, window sills, etc. It seemed I always had a couple of cleaning rags going.

Around Thanksgiving we took a break and drove our first truckload of stuff up to Corvallis. We only spent a few days, then returned to Austin to continue packing and divesting ourselves of the old place. During that brief visit to our new hometown, we ate at Sunnyside Up. In the restroom while drying my hands, I noticed that the light-switch cover was very dirty. Without thinking, I started scrubbing it with the wet paper towel I'd just used. I'd cleaned half of it before I realized the absurdity of my action and stopped.

Today Leela and I dined at that restaurant again, and once again I visited the restroom. Remembering my cleaning trance of over a year ago, I noticed that half of the light switch cover was still dirty. So I thought: What the heck! And just cleaned the rest of it.