Now for today's post:
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| See? Don't you wish you had one? |
Mom’s kitchen and dining room floors were amazing.
Gleaming, shining clean.
Perfect for sliding about in one’s socks.
And the most exciting thing about her clean floors was the
little demon that came out to clean them.
Let me tell you about it.
Once a week, Mom would move all of the kitchen and dining room
chairs into the living room.
Which was an adventure itself. (See here. Go ahead. We’ll
wait . . .)
And while my brother and I were thus engaged, she would get
down on her hands and knees and scrub the floors.
And I do mean scrub.
Never, in the history of the world, were there cleaner
floors.
I know, because I spent a lot of time down on them.
Ahem . . .
Following the scrubbing, Mom would bring out the wax.
And this was about the time that my brother and I would
abandon our chair play and lay at the edge of the floor to watch.
Because after the wax was applied, the ‘demon’ came out.
It was green.
And had a rounded, wide head and a long, stiff tail.
And, if you looked carefully, little white eyes.
That stared at you.
It also had two sets of interchangeable little pads that
snapped on and off.
Dark and ‘bristly’ or white, soft and ‘puffy’.
It was the latter that created the longed-for shine.
Mom would turn the demon over, snap on the soft pads and
then flip it back and hit the switch.
Instantly the wide, white pads would begin to spin.
This was the best part.
As she polished, Mom would move the demon closer and closer
to George and I.
Closer.
Closer.
Bravely, we would hold our ground. Daring each other to be
the last to head, shrieking, for the nearest couch.
I should point out, here, that I never won.
George has nerves of steel.
Turkey.
There is a codicil:
Years later, when I was newly married with waxable floors, and
my Mom had graduated to kitchen carpeting, I inherited the ‘demon’.
It still had the interchangeable pads.
And still achieved an amazing shine.
And still terrorized small children.
Full circle.
