Christmas has come and gone, and I certainly hope you had a merry one.  I love Christmas, and I'm always sad to see it go.  One thing I'm ready to see go, is the cleaning.  I don't know when the Beer Commissioner became a maid service, but apparently he has.  Before I got married, I told Mrs. Commissioner, I can live in this house for 400 years, and never one time, not ever, am I ever going to say, 'hey, you know those baseboards are really dirty.'  It just simply isn't going to happen. 

I keep the kitchen relatively clean, but the rest of the house, not so much.  I'll take the initiative and clean something, if I feel the state welfare agency would come into the house and try to take away the Little Deputy because the house is disgusting.  Mr. and Mrs. Commissioner used to have a cleaning lady (actually about 42,983 of them), but Mrs. Commissioner sacks the cleaning lady, if after the third time at the house, she doesn't clean the baseboards. 

Now, I also have to tell you, Mrs. Commissioner is a cleaning fanatic.  And when she cleans, she goose steps around the house, throwing crap everywhere, treating the dirt with the contempt of someone who just shot your puppy.  It really isn't pleasant.  Usually when she gets in these moods, which are typically on days ending in 'y', I get up and try to help clean something.  Normally I just get a big pile of laundry and throw it on the floor in front of the TV and watch wrestling, or Man v. Wild or something equally entertaining.  Folding the laundry is actually productive, and gets me out of cleaning baseboards, and gets me out of the way of Hurricane Mrs. Commissioner in her quest to rid the house of the offending dirt.  In fairness to her, she is the only woman in the house of a bunch of otherwise un-helpful guys, most of which produce massive amounts of laundry.  (As an aside, I remember 3 years ago we bought these brand-new Maytag hoop-di-do washer and dryers.  I remember Mrs. Commissioner saying, I'm actually excited about doing laundry...I bet she is SO over that.)

I say all this, because in the past 5 days, we have cleaned the house 964 times.  We cleaned the house on the 22nd, because the 23rd was our anniversary, and Mrs. Commissioner likes the house clean for the babysitter.  We cleaned the house on the 23rd, because were having 28 friends over to our house on the 24th for a Christmas eve party.  We cleaned until 1:00 a.m. Christmas morning, because we just had 28 people at our house for a Christmas eve party.  We cleaned Christmas morning, because we had 14 acres of wrapping paper and twist ties from presents from Santa Claus (you'd be happy to know the Commissioner was exceptionally good this year and got exactly what he asked for).  We cleaned Christmas evening, because we had cookie crumbs, Hershey kiss wrappers, and misc. debris all over the house from the deputies running outside all day playing with their new toys.  Mrs. Commissioner cleaned all day yesterday, because I was sick, and she wanted me to know how worthless I was for not cleaning.  Today, the Commissioner in-laws arrive in town from Missouri.  You'll never guess what we've spent all morning doing?