Cleansane

If you read my previous post, you already know that I have been known to turn to urbandictionary.com for insight to the words and riddles of the modern world. While researching alternative meanings for the word clear, I happened upon an excellent word for the new millenium -- cleansane:

The state of stress and compulsive cleaning that overcomes a homemaker in the days leading up to a realtive's visit or a party.

My brother's graduation party is tonight. It's been driving my mom cleansane.

Newfangled or no, this is an excellent word. We've all been there -- driven to the very brink of cleansanity due to some sort of inspection -- and it ain't pretty, am I right ladies (and like-minded gents)?

It's bad enough when it's your in-laws coming to tsk-tsk at the condition of your clean home; it's always worse when your house is not in order, and you're shoving a sinkload of dirty dishes into the oven, and covering up clutter with a strategically thrown rug.

These are the smoke-screens and masks of our lives; and when you think about it, it's easy to see that while an oven full of dirty dishes is bad enough, there are some messes that are much, much worse: messy, smelly and rotten. Sometimes, you simply need to wash the dishes; sometimes, you catch a whiff of decay, and there's no getting around it: it's time to take out the trash.

I know how it feels to be certifiably cleansane due housekeeping ineptitude, but at least I have a teenager to handle the trash. How much worse and awfuller it must be when the cleansanity is due to moral turpitude...as in the case of embezzlers and racketeers.

My mother always told me that the worst thing about telling a lie is that you have to tell another...and then another...and still others...to keep up the guise and hold up that ever-heavier mask. Eventually, such a construct of deceit must result in sleepless nights spent tossing and turning, and the arrhythmic beating of a tell-tale heart -- or is there only remorse when someone finally happens to lift up the corner, and see what lies beneath that weighty and tightly-woven rug?

There's been enough time spent overlooking...and enough breath wasted with smooth talk and tap dancing. It's time to pay the piper; it's time to stop the cleansanity.