Not so much like Mary Poppins

Yesterday the chimney sweep paid us a visit. At least that's what his business card said.

Of course I had spent the half-hour before his arrival cleaning frantically, vacuuming, dusting, Windexing... Tweenie looked at me like I was brain dead.

"Seriously mom, he's a chimney sweep."

Well, mama has her standards and I had to tidy up as close to his arrival time as possible because it only takes 4.2 seconds for my boys to trash a pristine room. They are a little intimidated by the vacuum cleaner, so as long as it's running they sit in paralytic stupor on the couch.

I vacuum often.

Even so, by the time the sweep arrived there were bits of Count Chocula littering the carpet like crunchy little turds. Mr. IQ2000 asks: "So, you have kids?"

I could hear a naughty little someone rustling around in the pantry. I enlisted Tweenie and we both marched a boy over to the playroom, locking the door behind us.

Through the sounds of Dancing Elmo and the Shrek soundtrack we could hear all sorts of interesting noises coming from the living room. At one point I went to check, but all I could see was an enormous Shop Vac obscuring the view to the fireplace. Suddenly a gray isolation suit clad man emerged from the shadowy hearth, complete with a full head and face mask.

Rascal tugged at my pantleg. "Dark Bayder?"

The sweep saw him standing there and waved. But instead of running away to the relative safety of the playroom, he scooted into the kitchen toward the pantry.

I never did want to buy that stupid cereal anyway. Dump away, my son. I'll vacuum it up later.

The living room this morning. It was immaculate before I went to bed, and Tweenie only walked through this area once as she was getting ready for school. How do they do it?? But I shouldn't complain: this is the cleanest it'll be all day.