Sunday, April 19, 2009

Cleaning the Coop

The good news is that Pumpkin's school is cleaner than most of your homes. The bad news is that I know this from being part of the cleaning crew. Pumpkin's school is a co-op, and for many co-oppers, this means that you have to pull off a duty day every once in a while. I wish that was what I had to do. Yesterday was the third of three major clean-ups for the school, and everyone has to participate in one of them. I also had to endure a few individual cleaning days over the course of the year, as everyone has had to, but none quite as thorough as the major clean. They made us clean EVERYTHING. I'm not just talking about table tops and toys. We pulled everything out of the school onto the lawn, cleaned and disinfected all of it, while others cleaned and disinfected every interior surface imaginable. We even had to clean the mail-slot-style cubbies where we pick up our children's art work every day. I have many spots in my house where I stuff mail, flyers, etc., and I can honestly say that I've never thought to wash and disinfect any one of them. I'm just proud of myself if I ever get around to sorting all that crap. As for my job at the school, I was thrown into the basement to sort out the toys, tossing out the useless ones, and cleaning up the keepers. Because it is a co-op, there have been a lot of crappy toy donations over the years, which left me with a lot of junk to sort through. The two dads who worked along with me left me to decide what got tossed. My husband would have avoided that task too. Is it a guy thing? Hubby hates making small decisions and freezes when faced with annoying tasks like this. Even last night when I was feeling ill with cold and flu symptoms, I asked him to go out and bring home whatever for dinner, and he still couldn't do it without calling home to get me to be more specific. What I wanted was to be exempt from having to make a decision. He didn't get that. At least I didn't have to cook.

As for the drag of the co-op factor, whatamIgonnado? It's a great school, and I will probably be sending Pumpkin there again next year on the days when she isn't in JK. Maybe I should take a cue from some of the other mothers and send in a substitute me on the cleaning days. Anyone looking to make a buck?

5 comments:

Nora said...

I would hate, hate, hate that cleaning job. And Jeff would never throw anything out, ever, so I would have to do it.

Anonymous said...

Send my husband; neat freak that he is!!

Chantal said...

Like you said, at least you know it is clean.

Run ANC said...

While I think it's a great idea, how exactly do working parents pull off the duty/cleaning days?? I guess they have to take time off, but I'm guessing even my lenient ex-boss would be none too thrilled about the reason..

My husband says he leaves things like that because he's afraid to make the wrong choice. (Personally, I think he thinks those small decisions are not worth his time...)

kittenpie said...

Man, I can't even clean my own house, never mind the daycare... I'd feel grouchy about spending the time NOT on my own problems! But you can send a sub? Isn't that totally cheating and beside the point of a co-op?