I’m not one who becomes irritated easily. I have, what they call, “a long fuse” in most instances. So it is with some degree of surprise (my own) that I have such a strong reaction to the commercials that come on promoting bleach, or laundry detergent, or cleaning products. You know the commercials I mean. They always begin in a similar fashion. A young, perfectly put together mother, is strolling through her sparkling clean house, when, Oh dear! Somebody goes and spills spaghetti sauce all over the counter. Or, tracks in a heaping load of fresh mud from outside directly on to her clean tile floor. Or, dumps grape juice on her white carpet. What does this mother do? I know what I would do. I know what words I would utter, and I know the culprit of any of these offenses in my home would be majorly dusted – after they helped clean up the mess. But this mom? In her khakis and matching sweater set? She always makes the same facial expression, and this is about the time I want to shoot through the roof. It’s a half smile, half knowing nod, with a touch of “I know just what to do,” at which point she and her cleaning product come to the rescue and make everything bright and shiny again. Barf.
I was thinking of commercials of this nature the other morning when I was getting all three girls their pancake breakfasts to the table. My coffee was already cold – untouched on the counter beside me. I was in a state of half-dress – jammy pants, with a shirt on, and my bathrobe, too. I was a sight, let’s just leave it at that… Quincy was insisting she pour her own syrup, which I was trying to dissuade her from, but she was being persistent and I was distracted. Finally I relented and let her have at it. I went to serve Brookie and when I turned around, not only had Quincy saturated all three of her pancakes, she had filled her plate with syrup and the entire counter too. A syrup waterfall was pouring off the counter on to the kitchen rug mat below. Did I give Quincy the sweet knowing nod and usher her back to the table so that I could clean up this mess by myself? Well, no. I wheeled toward her in what must have been a frightening move because she stopped pouring the syrup and looked at me with dread. “WHAT?! ARE!? YOU!? DOING!?” I barked at her, my morning breath directly in her face, my bathrobe flying in every direction. Her response, which I feel summed up quite nicely was, “woops.” I grabbed some paper towels (the quicker-picker-upper, if you will) and tried to wipe some of the sticky goo off the counter, all the while grumbling. Quincy looked at her syrup fountain and probably realized the error of her ways because she uttered a very deflated, “Sorry…” At that point, I told her it was okay and everybody makes mistakes, and because she felt rotten and I knew it, I gave her a hug. But as I cleaned and she ate her pancakes I continued to inwardly curse the syrup and wonder what the hell the best product is to clean maple syrup out of a floor rug could be. And then I thought of Those Women. The commercial women, I mean… in their tidy homes, with their smart outfits and their trusty cleaning products at the ready for any spill or major catastrophe. It’s these very images that make us moms feel inadequate. Forget about the Sports Illustrated swim suit magazine covers. At this point, those magazines are simply laughable. It’s the “perfect mom” imagery that gets my goat – that causes my otherwise long fuse to blow at the site of one of those commercials. As I tossed a pile of syrup soaked kitchen rags in the washing machine, I adjusted my bathrobe and imagined a more “realistic” commercial. Say, one in which a child spilled sticky syrup all over a relatively clean (but let’s face it, pretty untidy) kitchen. First words out of the mom’s mouth? The F word. Following? A lecture. Then and only then: the cleaning product. It can be any product, really. In my case it was dishsoap because, well, it was there… But any product would do I suppose.
I have a feeling I won’t be seeing a commercial peddling the newest Clorox product depicting a mom in her jammies and bathrobe any time soon, but I must admit, it gives me a small amount of joy to imagine it. That’s what us real moms must do to take the edge off of mopping up syrup on our hands and knees…
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