Lazy Bones

I must admit I am a Lazy Bones. Housework used to be important in the days when life was building and dinner parties and house proud guests came for an evening of chat about work politics and child development. Those days are over,fortunately. I meet friends out and housework is on demand. Eureka, however. One day, I picked up a robotic vacuum cleaner and my life changed. Instead of the have-to-clean-up dread, little Robby is detached from his wall charger and put to work scooting about the floors picking up old popcorn kernels, missed coffee beans and running-shoe grit. Watching him duck and run, turn and sweep is pure luxury. For the cost of one good housekeeper for an hour, Robbie just does his job without pay, complaint or breakage. In areas where he is not welcome, a row of books - that I am not presently reading  - deters his enthusiasm and he turns to clean up what is available to his brushes. Oldsters and comic book collectors will remember Flash Gordon, a man of the future who rode about in flying cars between the skyscrapers while solving the problems of his world. A kind of electronic Batman or Wonder Woman. His pages suggested such as today's micro-wave ovens, garburetors and robotic vacuums. I am not Mr. Gordon but the less cleaning I have to do, the better my life seems. When I pull a fuzzy book off the shelf or sneeze unduly, I know it is time to dust. I use a pre-Flash Gordon feather duster. While the chicken secondaries don't actually pick up the dust, they do  frighten it into secret places or onto the floor where Robby finds it. I know because I empty his little cache before I plug him in again. The venetian blinds are ignored until I am forced to call someone in to wash them and the window cleanings are saved for days when I am feeling particularly angry with the world and need to scrub at something. A bottle of Windex and a roll of towel works in the places with shiny things in spite of warnings not to use The Blue. The rest of the time, unless important company comes, the dust is left undisturbed. There are those who think I am losing it and I am - losing house-proud and replacing it with proud of doing as I please.