{"id":622,"date":"2009-05-15T17:32:15","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T21:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=622"},"modified":"2009-05-15T22:56:48","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T02:56:48","slug":"cleaning-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=622","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning House"},"content":{"rendered":"

photo-2-small.JPG<\/a> <\/p>\n

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or
\nblock the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you? <\/p>\n

—Erma Bombeck
\n______________<\/p>\n

I\u2019m getting company at my house this weekend. Family. Some remnants of the great influx of Waglers that will be flowing in. For a wedding this Saturday. <\/p>\n

And so they\u2019ll come, the Waglers and the Yutzys. From all points of the country. By air, by land. But none by sea, as far as I know. To observe and celebrate. To witness and rejoice. <\/p>\n

My sister Rhoda and her family will stay upstairs, in my still-empty apartment. And I mean empty. No furniture, nothing. At least it\u2019s passably clean. Bring your pillows, air mattresses and sleeping bags, I told them. And my niece Janice, who I haven\u2019t seen in more than two years, planned to come and sleep on my living room couch. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to it. To seeing everyone, hanging out, the merry boisterous times. I\u2019m more than delighted to play host and reciprocate a bit of the hospitality my siblings have always shown me when I visited their homes. <\/p>\n

But to a man who has lived alone now for two-plus years, it\u2019s cause for a bit of, well, shall we say, mild concern. I haven\u2019t had much company, other than guy friends, at my house in a long time. And guys hanging out and snacking with my award-winning chip dip (in my eyes, at least) while watching football or baseball or Nascar usually don\u2019t pay much attention to their surroundings. Not that they\u2019d be even slightly concerned or offended by a messy house.<\/p>\n

My house is comfortably cluttered. Stacks of things. Books. Boxes of this and that. Empty steel ammo boxes I use for storing things. Plastic storage tubs with lids. Bags of groceries on the kitchen table. Chips. Tinned food. Cases of water stacked in the porch. More books. Numerous pairs of shoes strewn about. Several coils of new rope I picked up at a gun show (never know when it might come in handy). Hunting knives and other outdoor gear. Backpacks. Clean shirts hanging where they dried weeks ago. And, of course, more books. <\/p>\n

A stranger would conclude it\u2019s a hopeless mess. The stranger would be wrong. I know where everything is. I have a system. When I need something, I pluck it from its spot and go. Throw it back when I\u2019m done. It works for me. <\/p>\n

So the thought of company, well, all are welcome of course. But when Janice offered to \u201cclean my house\u201d while she\u2019s here, I half panicked. Not that I wasn\u2019t greatly touched by such generosity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I ask is that you have cleaning supplies around somewhere,\u201d she said cheerfully. <\/p>\n

Of course. Cleaning supplies. I\u2019m sure Ellen had some such stuff way back when, stuck away in cabinets and kitchen drawers. I made a mental note. Check cleaning supplies.<\/p>\n

But before Janice could clean, I figured I\u2019d better get things spruced up a bit. Pre-clean the house so the real house-cleaner won\u2019t be too horrified. <\/p>\n

So last weekend I hit it. Vacuumed. Dusted. Swept. Wiped. Discovered some floor and table areas that had not seen the light of day for months. Stacks of books were carefully packed in large plastic storage tubs. Old newspapers discarded. Throws and spreads carefully laundered. The windows, well, the blinds were kept down as always. The way my windows are looking these days, soon I won\u2019t need blinds. Light won\u2019t be able to penetrate, in or out. <\/p>\n

This spring, as usual, my house has been overrun by vast hordes of tiny little black ants. Itty bitty things. Swarming everywhere. A few weeks ago, I placed ant traps around the house. Ant hotels, I think they\u2019re called. For some reason, the little pests ignored them completely. Traipsed blithely by. Then last week I went out and bought some sweet poison, brand name Terro. Placed drops of it on little pieces of cardboard and set them about here and there. <\/p>\n

Instantly, the ants\u2019 behavior changed dramatically. They congregated as if for church service. Or even better, a deadly revival. Little black rings circled my drops of poison, everywhere I placed them. The drops disappeared, the ants kept coming. I refreshed their supplies daily, bought more Terro, and refreshed supplies again. Near as I can tell, there\u2019s about as many ants as before; when one staggers off to die, another springs forth to replace him. But at least now they are all congregated around my offerings. In out of the way places, not on the table or around the food or in the fridge, which they had somehow infested. <\/p>\n

And so my house was about as ready as it was going to get for Janice, the cleaner. Then, on Monday, alas, an email. Apologetic. She couldn\u2019t make it. Had to cancel her ticket. Some things had come up at work and the schedule wouldn\u2019t allow it. <\/p>\n

My first reaction: Disappointment, of course. I haven\u2019t seen Janice in more than two years. In Florida, in February, 2007. So I\u2019d been looking forward to hanging out and catching up. Now, none of that. Oh, well.<\/p>\n

My second reaction, closely following the first: Drat. All that house cleaning, for what? Sheesh. Next time I\u2019ll wait until she\u2019s on the plane. Could have left it like it was. Messy. Comfortable. Cluttered. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Oh, well. Again. <\/p>\n

*************************
\nAlmost twenty-six years ago, back in 1983, on a hot August day, a child was born to my brother Steve and his wife Wilma. Their second. A little boy. <\/p>\n

It was August 24th. My birthday. We were filling silo that day at my brother-in-law Alvin Yutzy\u2019s farm. As I struggled to lift the heavy bundles of corn stalks from the ground and heave them onto the wagon, I muttered to whoever was working with me, \u201cThey\u2019d better name him Ira.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a bit of an Amish tradition, although not poured in concrete. If a niece or nephew is born on your birthday, walla, you have a namesake. But Ira is a pretty rare name, even among the Amish. It\u2019s really more of a Jewish name. So I wasn\u2019t sure if my brother and his wife would do it. Burden their young son with a name like that. <\/p>\n

But they did. Named the boy Ira Lee. I beamed with pride. Now, even if I never had a son of my own, there was someone to carry on my name. <\/p>\n

I left Bloomfield for good around the time Ira Lee started grade school. After that, we had only periodic contact. For the first ten years or so, I faithfully sent him a greeting card each year on his birthday, a crumpled $5.00 bill tucked inside. Which was a princely sum for both me and him. <\/p>\n

In the mid 1990s, Steve and his family moved east into Lancaster County. A rare thing for Midwestern people to do, move into the furious rat race that is Lancaster. But they did. Settled here. Successfully. Ira Lee finished his education, graduating from Faith High School. And in the next few years, acquired an Associate\u2019s Degree in Business. <\/p>\n

He grew into a tall, quiet young man. Taller than me by several inches. The stubborn independent Wagler streak runs in him. He often did things on the spur of the moment, in a manner that befuddled his Lancaster peers. He\u2019s traveled the country. Toured Europe on a shoestring budget. Excels in sports. He is an accomplished writer, as those who have enjoyed his hilarious Harmon<\/a> stories well know. <\/p>\n

He is my nephew. My namesake. I\u2019m proud of him. <\/p>\n

This Saturday, at one o\u2019clock, he will marry his fianc\u00e9, the lovely Rosa Miller.<\/p>\n

ira-and-rosa.JPG<\/a><\/p>\n

I wish them well, as they join their hands and lives for their future together. May God bless their new home, in ways beyond their imagination.<\/p>\n

They have honored me by assigning me duties as an usher at the wedding. I\u2019m very proud to accept. For a brief time, at least, the usher is the most powerful person at a wedding. He can seat you at a spot where you can actually see and hear what\u2019s going on, or banish you to the back benches, where there is wailing and much grief. <\/p>\n

So to any who are attending, I\u2019m always open to some discreet persuasion. Grease my palm with, say a $20, and I\u2019ll get you a seat of honor, up front. Sass me, stiff me, and you\u2019ll be seated at the back with all the bawling babies. So far back you won\u2019t even know you\u2019re at a wedding. <\/p>\n

Such raw power could surge to one\u2019s head and make one giddy. Hope I can handle it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be fun. I can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n

*****************
\nLast week’s post created a firestorm, resulting in an astounding forty-six comments. A record. Left all others in the dust. And that’s not even counting the dozen or so private emails I got from readers practically weeping with relief that someone had finally expressed their own frustrations. <\/p>\n

This week I’m celebrating the wedding. And hanging out with family and freundschaft and roaring and having a good time. In the near future, perhaps even as soon as next week, I may dig in a little to examine and analyze the reasons the “Heathen” post struck such a nerve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you? —Erma Bombeck ______________ I\u2019m getting company at my house this weekend. Family. Some remnants of the great influx of Waglers that will be flowing in. For a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}