What Would (super)Jesus Do?

Not too long ago, I was discussing house-cleaning with my friend Buddy, and we were sharing our thoughts on most-despised house cleaning activity.

I used to clean houses with another friend as a second job, so I have the interesting but not entirely unique experience of having cleaned not only my own house, but also the houses of other people: on a regular basis.

On some levels, I didn’t actually mind cleaning other people’s houses. For a start, it’s good exercise. If you can suspend your horror at the idea that you are scrubbing other people’s poo from their toilets*, the work isn’t that bad, and it’s better paid than a lot of other boring manual labour jobs.

Anyway, in one particular house that we cleaned, there were two bathrooms. Now I have a thing about cleaning bathrooms. I hate it. Kitchens – fine. Vacuuming ALL DAY – not a problem. But there is something about the ingrained filthiness of bathrooms that quite literally makes me sob with frustration. I used to take a break** after cleaning the bathrooms in this house because if I didn’t I simply couldn’t go on without bursting into tears. Some might blame the cleaning products, but I think it’s the incredibly physical nature of managing to get a bathroom spotless that would make me upset.

So I was telling all of this to Buddy, who started to nod enthusiastically half-way through the story. When I finished my little anecdote about being a wuss, he agreed that it was indeed soul-destroying work and then he said this:

Every time I scrub my shower I say to myself, “I’ll bet you Paul Dempsey doesn’t have to do this”

What I love about this is not that he finds bathroom cleaning frustrating (I think we can agree that it is one of the more annoying chores) it’s the fact that he has such an overflowing abundance of indie-rock* cred that the person he chooses to fixate his “lazy rock star/got my own maid/drinking wine with diamonds in the glass Lady Marmelade-style” hatred on is the lead singer of Something for Kate.

It’s made more amusing by the revelation that Buddy has been scrubbing and hating like this for over ten years. While I might have borne a latter-day sneer against the house-cleaning habits of top-selling Australian bands****, I doubt that his observation was correct in 1996 when Something for Kate were playing the Arthouse for $100 + a third of the door.

What is your bathroom cleaning mantra?


* Tim Finn refers to this with reference to a Buddhist ritual: “Before fame, chopping wood. After fame, chopping wood”, with the point being that humility requires that we undertake familiar rituals shared by all. Wonder if he scrubs his own bathroom? Yes. I bet he does.

** Goddamn slacker

*** Oh for crying out loud, how old are we now?

**** Who no doubt clean their own houses, or at least unpack the dishwasher.


James Reyne update #3: It's really happening! People are coming to my blog looking for information about James Reyne. Oh how disappointed they must be.