Cleaning Conspiracy

Recently I asked my children to pick up the playroom. Apparently the situation became grievous for my six year old daughter because she came to me, arms flying in dramatic motion as she claimed, "Jeremiah is not picking up the toys. I don't know why I have to pick up everything. It's not fair." Then the flailing arms stopped and crossed in determination as she said, "You need to come and make him pick up some toys. I'm not cleaning up all the mess myself."

I looked past my daughter and into the playroom where my then 3 year old son was busily putting toys away and said, "I'm picking up!" My daughter whirled around, assessed the situation, then returned to her determined pose and said, "Well he wasn't cleaning up when I was in there." When I looked at my daughter's face I saw my own 6 year old face as I recalled a conversation much like this with my father many years ago.

I was probably around 6 years old, my older sister around 8, and my little brother around 4. At the time my parents' basement was unfinished. The solid cement walls were decorated with various crayon work that we had not been given permission to create. While these glamorous cement walls only defined one large area, one part had sort of been sectioned off as my little brother's room. No walls were really needed to form the room as the toys and general clutter sort of drew the boundary lines themselves.

I doubt any of the other kids minded the mess. After all, it wasn't our mess. Still, my parents minded and would occsionally require the disaster area to be picked up. On one such occasion my dad asked my sister and me to help my little brother pick up his room. My sister and I begrudgingly accepted the assignment. I remember distinctly the awful state of my brother's room. Mountainous piles of junk behind which, no doubt, lurked scary creatures that inhabited dirty rooms or worse, even more piles of stuff to pick up.

My sister and I started to clean up the mounds and encouraged our brother to do so. We had very little interest in cleaning up his mess by ourselves. However, my brother sort of walked around the room at first not picking up anything. He had assumed the role of manager and was delegating his assignment to us. My sister and I and tried to verbally persuade our brother to clean but he just ignored us. Not wanting to get stuck with the mother of all messy rooms ourselves, I ran upstairs to get Dad.

"Dad, David isn't cleaning up! He's just standing there and walking around!" My whining plea induced my dad to come downstairs and investigate. When we got downstairs, there, in the middle of the mounds, was my brother dutifully picking up. "It looks like he's cleaning to me." Dad said. I couldn't believe it. My sister couldn't believe it. We protested and complained. We had two witnesses! How did the judge and jury decide so quickly we wondered.

When dad went back upstairs my brother ceased all cleaning activities and resumed playing again. He climbed on top of the peeling, yellow dresser, and sat perched like a bird ever mocking us with that triumphal smile. So my sister and I decided we needed to try again. Solid evidence, that's what we needed. As David sat there atop the dresser I inched towards the stairs, not wanting my brother to take notice and come down before I could get dad. Then running as fast as I could, but not calling for dad, I darted upstairs to bring dad downstairs to see our proof that my sister and I were getting the raw end of the deal.

Dad came downstairs with me but my rather astute brother had already shimmied down from the dresser and was in the act of picking up again. "I see him cleaning." Came my dad's reply. Then my sister and I were handed our sentence as our father said, "I want you all to just clean the room and get it done. Don't come and get me anymore." Oh the injustice, the unfairness! How could this be? What could be done?

But nothing really could be done. We had failed in our attempts to bring justice to ourselves. We were not allowed an appeal. And so we cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned. While from the lofty top of the yellow dresser we were smiled upon by our clever brother.

My memory ended as my daughter brought me back to the present day. "Mom, mom! I said Jeremiah was not picking up. I am not cleaning those toys up myself." I smiled. took her hand, walked towards my son and said, "It looks like he's cleaning to me." Then I sat down in the play room and monitored while both my children picked up toys.