Mop At First Bite

Seriously. It has begun again. The Cus-ing.

Monday, our first day back at work, we spent in the cafeteria from 8:00 until 10:45. With a few minutes to regroup before the 11:00 technology meeting, I scurried back to my room to fire up my laptop that needed to accompany me to the meeting. No sooner had I sat down than Cus appeared. Walked across the front of the room, down the windows side toward me, across the back. Just walked. No broom. No trash bag.

"Do you have any trash back there?" Let the record show that I bought my own tiny wastebasket to put by my desk, which I have told Cus I will empty into the main wastebasket when it's full. Just as I did all last year, except for the days that Cus emptied a couple of used absentee excuses that could have waited until the end of the week.

"No. I just got here. I've been in meetings."

"Oh. THERE'S one!" Cus bent down by my rickety old wooden bookcase with three shelves, containing a single National Geographic magazine still in the wrapper that is not even mine, but appeared over the summer. Cus picked up something so small that I could not even see it. "I thought they'd leave one."

I have no idea what Cus harvested from my floor. The point is that Cus had almost three hours to come in my room and do that while I was away, but chose that very minute to intrude. But there's more! A lot more!

Tuesday, the time for lunch marked on the schedule was 12:00 to 1:00. I brought my lunch. I was involved in watching MUSIC, not the pleasant sounds one might "watch" with her ears, but the videos on spotting abuse which are required viewing every year. So I did not warm up my sandwich until 12:15. I sat down at my desk. Opened up my Ritz Bits. Unscrewed the lid from my water bottle. And saw Cus pushing the dust mop through my door. Perhaps I've grown lax in concealing displeasure all these months of convalescence, because I'm pretty sure Cus noticed my eyeroll at that stellar bit of timing, and turned on a heel and went away. Good riddance! Because how dirty could my room be with no traffic in it, and who wants to eat lunch while wheezing from the dust stirred up by Cus? Not this ol' Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. But there's more!

Tuesday night was Open House from 6:00 to 8:00. I had three sign-in sheets full of visitors. Constant traffic. At 7:40, as one group left, just before the next group entered, I spied movement in the hall that was not coltish freshmen kicking up their heels. It was Cus, striding purposefully up the hall with Mr. Clean on a stick. Not so much Mr. Clean himself as his Magic Eraser.

Seriously. There was still time left for visitors. Who cleans before everyone is gone? That's like the gal at the old Chinese buffet jabbing my foot with her Bissell when it was still two hours until closing time.

Some parts of the year are not going to fly by.