Dear Jim Diaries

CWE4 Cleaning Day

Dear Jim,

I’ll keep this short (I think – sometimes I get writing to you and it just pours out of me). I’m ready to lay down. Abby made us have a marathon cleaning day. Well, made me, because one of us kept a neat and tidy apartment before I arrived, and one of us leaves a whirlwind of chaos in her living quarters. It’s not like that’s news to you, or any of the Bob-Whites, given the state of my closet at Crabapple Farm. Now that I don’t have Moms to hound me, the chaos tends to spread beyond the closet. At least until a roommate puts her foot down, as Abby did this morning.

I felt extra bad, because she was so apologetic about it. Like it was her fault. She promised to help, and then promised she wasn’t trying to poke through my stuff, like I might think she was being nosy or something. Mart would have been so proud of me, if he’d known what I was thinking, because I was so very tempted to quote a real live book. It’s a line from that author Honey and Di both liked in senior high.

“Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all.”

I remember the line because Honey joked one sleepover that that was who she aspired to be when she grew up. I don’t know if Honey or Di would even remember. We were all in a silly mood and flying high on sugary snacks and pop. They’d both read the book and were talking it up, trying to convince me to read it, but it wasn’t a mystery. It wasn’t Lucy and it wasn’t even Cosmo, which I gave more of a try after we learned that it was all the same author. I could never admit it to Mart, not after he teased me so much about Lucy and I teased him so much about Cosmo, but Mr. Appleton is a great writer and did well with both. I’ll still take Lucy’s mysteries over Cosmo’s space explorations, and both over Di and Honey trying to get me to read a romance or some such.

Anyway, in their quest to convince me that it was well-written and I’d like the book, Di opened it at random and read a page. And, sure, to the extent that senior-high me is a tolerable literary critic, I agree the writing’s not terrible, and the story’s probably well-enough, if it’s your genre. It just wasn’t mine.

But then Honey declares that’s who she wants to grow up to be and we were both like, “Who are you and what have you done with Miss Tactful?”

Honey saw our looks and giggled. “Well, maybe I don’t want to actually be guilty of all that, but I could be happy to be accused of it. If I’m dreadfully nosy, then it must be that Trixie and I really did open Belden Wheeler Detective Agency and are still ‘nosing’ around mysteries. And Trixie only calls me bossy when I’m keeping her organized on one of our projects, so it means we’re still all friends and doing Bob-White things. And there’s nothing wrong with being clean and orderly!”

“I’ll get a plaque made for your desk at BWDA,” I vowed then. “Here sits a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman, victimizing us all’.”

Di giggled. “That sounds more like it belongs on a tombstone than an office desk.”

We were all joking, and it’ll be a joke when I actually do get the plaque for Honey, but Honey’s right, it’ll still mean we made it, made all our dreams reality.

But, seriously, Jim, in what world is Abby getting bossy—because (admittedly) her polite attempts to get me to clean up have failed—and making me clean up my (admittedly) extensive mess leave her thinking she’s the one doing the victimizing? She’s definitely the victim here, and I deserve my sore muscles from all the cleaning I did today.

Less seriously, but just as honestly, is there any chance I don’t re-victimize her with my mess before I return to the D.C. offices after the holidays? I really must try harder to control myself, since I am living in Abby’s apartment.

November 21 2009.