Fanatical Cleaning

The grandmother I was referring to, when I told you about my mother telling me to put paper on the toilet seat at her house, was my mother’s mother.  She was saying that about her OWN mother!  Of course I thought she was a fruitcake and did not do it. 

She was SUCH a maniac about germs and cleaning.  Made me a complete slob, in self defense, for a long time.  After I was on my own, I went through several years of depression fueled rebellion before I came to the conclusion that I actually wanted things organized and clean. 

She actually wore out the arms of the couch vacuuming them so much.  She would vacuum the entire house AND the furniture AND change the beds twice a week.  All dishes had to be done immediately after a meal or a snack.  If there was an emergency and she could not immediately do the dishes, she would hide them in the refrigerator.  She used the excuse of not wanting to encourage bugs.  

She used the carpet cleaning machine so often that she wore out three of them in a short period of time.  She would come in my room while I was sleeping and grab my blue jeans to wash them, after I had only worn them for two hours and hung them up to wear again.  She did it so frequently that my jeans fell apart.  It was during those years when my friends and I were soooo skinny and we could not find pants to fit correctly and I only had two good pairs of jeans to wear.  

My mother used to take the trash out from the inside trash cans and then tell  me not to put anything in the trash can, take it all the way out to the big can on the street because she “just emptied that trash!”