One of these days, Alice...

The house cleaners come every fourth Wednesday, so tonight's my night to run around wildly, getting rid of the stacks of magazines and mail that gather over the course of the month so that they can access the surfaces they are hired to clean. My two prime last-minute dumping grounds are the garage and the guest bedroom.

When my parents still lived out of state, the guest room got fairly regular use, and I was forced to keep it tidy; at least, it never got more than a few months' worth of detritus piled in it. After the move, however, I had no good reason not to use it as a storehouse for everything that I couldn't find a place for anywhere else. In addition, my parents brought down some boxes of my stuff from their old house, some of which now reside in the guest bedroom as well. Add to that the day last spring I snapped over the way Eric would just dump out his boxes and bins of toys all over his room, took every single toy out, and threw them all in the guest room, and there's just about enough floor space left in there to set one foot as you lean in and throw more onto the pile.

Needless to say, I've taken to just locking it on the days the cleaners come. One day, Tommy told me, "You know, we really should clean out that room one of these days." I told him I'd put it on my bucket list.