One of the things that annoys me about movies and television is that no one cleans. People have time to dance on the beach and sit in designer living rooms. There aren't stacks of cereal bowls, or piles of crumpled laundry waiting to be sorted. The counters are spotless, and vacuuming is unnecessary. This creates a disparity with my own existence, which is rampant with chores. I cannot recall a day in the last decade in which I successfully avoided those tasks. There was a Mother's Day when my young son magnanimously offered to have me ignore the sink. He did not intend to get his hands wet, but he was okay with letting the plates pile up.
I suppose I could get my fill of observing housekeeping if I watched commercials, but those people are always smiling and have no toddlers clinging to their legs.
While I am not suggesting that producers add these activities to their scripts, it does give the impression that our favorite characters are not fettered down with such trivialities. They breeze between solving crimes and picking up a tall latte. Scrub pots? Not likely.
Relationships need tending as regularly as kitchens. Conversations need both prep and clean up if it is to be nourishing. But the illusion is that everyone but us is somehow above those details.
That is why I make an extra effort to leave a few dirty glasses and half filled hampers in sight when folks come for marriage group. Gotta do my part to bring down the facade.
