TAS [traditions & superstitions]

cleaning frenzy image courtesy of the internet

It's been a while since I've talked traditions, and seeing as I've got a summer cold coming on and it's Labor Day, I thought I'd blog about one of my strangest TAS's ever: cleaning.

That's right.  When I get sick, I clean.  I suppose this habit began, as so many do, in childhood.  Back then I'd stay home from school, tucked in my bed with a good book and a box of Kleenex, sniffing and oozing and listening to my mother clean the house.  In those years it never once occurred to me that since ours was a family of six children and a husband who wouldn't wield a mop, my mother was always cleaning.  All I knew was that as I coughed and hacked, she scrubbed.

You may be wondering:  When Mother became sick did she lounge in bed?  No.  She tied on a bandana [visualize an old-west bank robber] and went on with her day.  Cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, homework helper.

No small wonder I grew up believing that when when you get sick, you get busy.

So today, seeing as I have a sore throat and a sinus infection, I scrubbed the bathrooms, vacuumed, did all the laundry, mopped the kitchen and cleaned out the spice cabinet, just for good measure.  I still feel sick, yes.  And I'm about to jump into bed and watch COSMOS reruns on Netflix (I just finished reading Flight Behavior, but more on why reading A led to watching B later).  But good news!!  When I wake up tomorrow I'll have so much more than just my cold.  I'll have my cold and a sparkling clean house ....