Clean Underwear

I did my dishes, made my bed and cleaned the crockery-a months’ worth of cleaning in a day. Leaving town on vacation, nothing like coming home to crisp clean sheets and shiny sinks. That’s the face, the place; I’d like you to see. I’m lying to you. I clean for another reason.

One mustn’t leave the house in dirty underwear. If you die in a car wreck, or a helicopter drops on your head, or you choke on a Clif Bar it’s imperative that you are wearing spotless skivvies. Irrefutable logic it’s not, still it appeals to a maternal archetype.

When the plane plummets into the ocean and I die (the seat cushion as boogie board-good; as flotation device-not so great) I don’t want you to find my house in its usual state of ‘controlled chaos.’ There’s something else I don’t want you to find and I hadn’t even thought about it until one night of live theatre.

The folks at “Mortified” describe themselves as “a comic excavation of the strange and extraordinary things we created as kids. ...Adults sharing their own adolescent journals, letters, poems, lyrics, home movies, stories and more.” Funny stuff and for me, frightening. I’ve kept a journal since high school. You remember high school? Oh, you don’t?

I’d left the place clean but in my closet was a box of journals. When I got home I ripped the box open. Opening to the journal entries for my senior I found entries such as the following:

Thursday Jan. 19: I had a dream. Something with Jude and I fell asleep. I woke up and she was gone. I went to school. I brought my squirt gun.

Friday Feb. 10: Demi is soooo cute.

Monday Feb. 14: I gave Valentines to Judy, Dana, and Cheryl and Demi.

Monday Feb. 20: Keith and I went to meet Barbie and Lynette for brunch.

Wed. March 29: Neca called. Date is all set up for Friday night. Last show ever of Carol Burnett was on. Sob, sob.

Cleaning underwear is easy. Bonfires and Wite-out leave evidence behind.