My Inner Demon

I came face to face with the beast again yesterday. It had been quite a while since he's appeared and I have almost forgotten about him. But there we were - eye to eye.

I was babysitting for my friend Jill while she went on a lunch date. Since my kid is out of town, I went to her house to watch her little girls. This dear woman has 5 children and only two bedrooms to put them in. This means that the 3 year old I was babysitting shares her room with an 8 year old and 11 year old. The entire house is a miracle of "making it work" and each nook is creatively used to accommodate their large family.

Jill warned me when she left that the rear of the house was a disaster. When you have 5 kids and a life, you don't have time to keep on top of every little toy that falls on the floor. I understand this. I'm glad she has her priorities in line. So I settled in the clean front room with the 3 year old and played for the first hour. But eventually, we exhausted the possibilities in the front room, and the girl led me to her room to get a new game off a high shelf.

It was an addict's nightmare.

There I was standing foot deep in a room scattered with toys, Legos, puppets, clothes, books, and all other variations of kiddie refuse. But it wasn't mine. I knew the last thing Jill would want was for me to get involved.

I'm not going to clean up. I'm not going to clean up. I repeated to myself. Jill would be embarrassed if I organized her kids' rooms for her. I'll just let it all lie.

But it all was a lie. We went back to the front room with our game but after 5 minutes of trying to put the mess out of my mind, I made up some lame excuse about "finding something" in the bedroom and made a beeline for the enticing mess.

It was too perfect. Bins labeled "Legos" stood empty. Bookshelves had been ravished. Dress up clothes hung from the timbers. Since I wasn't quite sure when my friend would return, I cleaned stealthily yet frantically listening for the sounds of the car in the driveway so I could flee the scene. I made sure to keep strategic pieces of large clothes and paper scattered randomly on the floor and the beds unmade so the casual observer may think the room was unkempt. But underneath lay the disgusting truth. Every box had been refilled, every shelf organized and the doll house carefully put back together with each pink component. The crime was far more severe than I had intended.

And there is was - the sound of the door opening. I bustled out of the bedroom and greeted my friend with a breathless hello and falsely large smile. Please don't let her look in the bedroom, I silently prayed. And He heard me. I gave a quick farewell, hoped in the car and sped off fueled by my guilt.

I've been waiting for the phone call every since. "Hollywood, did you clean my kids' room?" To which I've got my lie all prepared, "your children must have done it!" Which is both impossible and pathetic. But how can I explain my addictive cleaning habits to this woman and ever be allowed back in her house again? I don't want people knowing that I am compelled to organize, label and straighten every room I go into otherwise we'll be the black sheep of the social circuit. Friends would always wonder if I would rather be cleaning their bathroom than having a nice chat on the couch. And they would be right to wonder. I've done remarkably well hiding this monster, but faced with such an impossible situation yesterday, I was incapable of repressing him. I became the beast. And I liked it.