It’s spring-cleaning time! 

The sunlight seeping through my apartment windows has put the messiness of my abode in high relief, inspiring an urge to clean that is positively primal.  Watch out family. I am going to Marie Kondo the f*ck out of this place.

It's hard to know where to start, but it will not be in my sons’ bedrooms.  Going into those rooms is like visiting a monkey house: You love monkeys, and imagine seeing them will be fun, but after five minutes, the smell forces you to flee.  Instead, I decide to focus on our common living spaces.  I want to clear off and throw out. I want endless expanses of clean surfaces.  Less messy family apartment; more Scandinavian Apple store. 

There’s been a jacket on my entryway bench for six years.  Hey fam, if it’s yours, let me know. Otherwise, I’m putting it in my “Give Away” pile, like they do on Hoarders. 

I live for the last two minutes of Hoarders with the Before and After split screen.  Gone are the mountains of armless baby dolls, heaps of broken electronics, and stacks of mildewed junk mail. Not only is the room clean but there’s long-lost furniture uncovered by the purge. The hoarder is grateful to have their couch back and waxes poetically about how lovely it would be to host a little neighborhood get-together. This is where I die a little because no one without an antibiotic IV drip would sit on that couch, and the hoarder’s neighbors watched a bucket brigade of people in gas masks toss desiccated racoons into the 1-800 Junk trucks so I’m guessing they’ll take a hard pass.  But still, despite these obstacles, I rejoice for the hoarder’s fresh start.

A fresh start is what I need, too.  Beginning with my kitchen.  My goal is stark minimalism and bright shiny cleanliness, but my reality is hardly used appliances cluttering every inch of countertop.  Expresso machine, coffee machine, panini press, juicer, air fryer, electric mixer…Williams Sonoma has less merch.  And so many condiments: how many hot sauces does one family need?  Six jars of molasses: why? Don’t get me started on spices…what in the world is mace, and is it bad that my bay leaves are from 1998? [Don’t answer that.] And who is responsible for seven bottles of open wine?  Confronted with all this chaos, I did what I think anyone would.  I moved all of it – minus the wine -- from the counter to a giant pile on the floor, a jumble of appliances and molasses.  And while the floor pile made the kitchen completely impassable, you just really can’t imagine the amount of counterspace it freed up.  I proudly surveyed my progress while polishing off a lovely, oaky California Chardonnay.

Next, I decided to tackle my pots and pans drawer.  Instead of the haphazard heap of cookware put away with no rhyme or reason, I followed the advice that cookware should be organized according to frequency of use.  Items used most often should be easy to access; those less used should be housed elsewhere.  Which is why I moved all pots and pans to my basement storage shed, while draining the last of an extraordinary Merlot.

Things were improving.  With the counter now cleared, I decided to disinfect using Martha Stewart’s recommendation of a white vinegar solution.  After polishing off a delightful Syrah, and unable to locate white vinegar, I determined that balsamic vinegar would suffice. Sadly, that turned out to be a poor choice because it was a balsamic vinegar glaze. Even so, my countertops are so beautifully uncluttered that I am crying with happiness.  I am also crying because the vinegar smell makes me so light-headed that I keep falling into the giant kitchen floor pile.

Wanting to regain momentum, I set my sights on the kitchen junk drawer…and the fourth bottle of open wine. If you Google how to clean a junk drawer you will find many approaches. “Pare down to only the most essential.”  “Use drawer organizers, label makers, dividers…” The advice is endless. I, however, opted for my own elegant solution of pulling the whole drawer out, dumping the entire contents in a box, and putting the box in my car trunk.  How’d you like me now, Marie Kondo?

Suddenly overwhelmed by all this cleaning, I decide to polish off that fifth bottle while cleaning my makeup brushes and watching the entire second season of Vanderpump Rules.   

Returning to the still completely-covered-in-balsamic-glaze kitchen, and dismayed by the enormity of the floor pile, I revisit my initial thinking, and decide to put everything from the pile back exactly where it was – except the bay leaves, which I’ll be donating.  The stickiness of the balsamic glaze makes every choice permanent, though I’m confident I’ll eventually be able to unstick it all using any of the 75,000 Clorox Wipes bought during the pandemic.  Just as soon as I drain the last of this Pinot Noir.

I didn’t spring clean as much as I had envisioned.  But on the bright side, my makeup brushes are squeaky clean, and better still, I don’t have to worry about those pesky wine bottles anymore.