Roberta Battles a Dust Rhino

My all-time favorite cartoonist, Gary Larson drew, among many other memorable panels, one titled the same as this entry. In fact I am ‘borrowing’ that caption from him. The cartoon features his trademark ‘housewife’: large of hip and wearing a flower-print dress and heels, horn rimmed glasses and hair done up in a beehive. She is holding an upright vacuum cleaner parallel to the ground, staving off a salivating gray rhino.

My name is not Roberta but I do have a dust rhino: my home. In the short time I was in Qing Dao my entire house – the floors, furniture and even the walls got coated in dust. To be perfectly fair I did remove the dust covers I had placed on the furniture before my trip to the States, and I hadn’t yet cleaned from that 5-week absence before I set off all over China, exploring again. So, in fact the accumulation of dust I speak of I figured I could clean all at once, after all of my summer traveling adventures. It promised to be an epic task. A rhinoceros sized task, to be exact.

I do know of a Roberta though. I’ve never met her in person but talked with her on the phone a few times. Her husband and I worked together. Never was there a man more devoted to his wife. His constant refrain: ‘Whatever she wants’.  Roberta had serious health issues. When she ailed he ran, no matter what job he was tackling while on the payroll. As his boss not only did I not blame him but actually encouraged him.

Mel was in his seventies when I joined the team. His children are older than I and here I am, his boss. Not that I ever took a ‘boss’ attitude. This man knew his job better than I ever could. The same went for most of my technicians. I had no illusions about it: never did I seek to direct their efforts. My job was to enable their abilities, be a buffer between upper management and them. I believe it was that management style that made me so successful. To this day, even though I now live on the other side of the world most of us still stay in touch whether they are retired or still on active duty. Every year, when I make my pilgrimage stateside I make a stop in Dallas for the exclusive purpose of visiting with my friends/former coworkers.

I miss them. What does that have to do with dust?

After living in Wuhan for 2 years, I still don’t know how to clean house. If I clean the living room the dining room is a dust heap. If I clean the office my bedroom is overcome. If I clean the bathroom within a  day it is dirty/dusty again. By the time I clean the kitchen the living room needs to be cleaned again. If I dust the surfaces the floors suffer and if I do the floor the surfaces end up coated. The cycle is neverending. Kind of like the neverending cycle of jams, preventive maintenance routines and bearing replacements on the machines Mel and the guys worked on. Kind of like the dust they had to sweep away to get to the things they had to repair.          

Would I have fewer dust problems if my house were carpeted? Probably fewer visible problems but my house would be dirty nonetheless. I’d have to wield the vacuum cleaner more often, like the Roberta in that cartoon panel. And, being as I moved into this apartment when everything was brand new and the complex was still being built I would have to deal with the toxic fumes from the carpet as well as the glues and the walls’ whitewash. If I had carpet I would probably have worse allergy symptoms. From a cleaning and health perspective it is better that I don’t have carpet.

From a ‘warmth in the winter’ perspective, I wish I did have carpet. Winter is coming up… but that is another issue.

I constantly ponder how to get and keep my house clean. I like a clean house but I don’t like to devote my life to cleaning it. How to battle that infernal dust rhino that the cartoon Roberta seems to have cornered?

As more apartments around this housing area are complete more and more people are moving in. During the height of summer, most run their air conditioners. You know it is hot when the people in the Over the Wall community run their air conditioners. Yet here I am, the only fool with windows and patio doors wide open!

Wide open window and patio doors. It occurred to me, walking home one day that seldom do I see a window in an apartment occupied by native Chinese flung all the way open, A/C running or not. Usually they have their windows open early morning or around dusk, and never one that opens directly in to a room. That reinforced the advice Sam gave me a while back in virtually those exact words. Maybe there is something to the opening and closing of windows I should explore. But first I had to get the house clean.

Resorting to the Chinese way of cleaning house – sloshing water all over everything and mopping it all up, I modified that practice by combining water with a laminated floor cleaner in a spray bottle. Then I put fresh dust liners on my nifty dust mop with its swivel head and took my floors to task after dusting all horizontal surfaces.

Two packs of disposable dust cloths later I am proud to report that it worked like a charm! The misted dust on the floor had no chance to go flying around and land on the furniture or elsewhere on some other part of the floor. I was ecstatic… until I saw the floor after it dried. Streaks, I tell you! Muddy streaks are all I got for my efforts! Until I figured out that I needed to buff the floor after it dries. And buff I did.

Oh Joy! Oh Miracle! Oh Donna Reed, goddess of housekeeping!!! My floors are beautiful! They reflect the furniture, the walls, the drapes. No more gray haze! No more dust rhino!

No more windows and doors flung wide open at my house.

I wish I could call that cartoon Roberta to tell her how to successfully banish her dust rhino. Pointless exercise, I know. She is a cartoon figure, dreamed up in the curious, over-imaginative mind of the long-since-retired Mr. Larson. I can’t call the real Roberta, either. She left Mel earlier this year, not for some mundane reason but because her time on this earth was over.

When I got the news, all the times that Mel confided in me, ranted at me, ran in my office in a panic to let me know his Roberta needed him and then dashing back out flashed through my mind. Tall, skinny, red-headed Mel, dumbfounded that this fantastic woman has seen fit to love him and forever in love with his Roberta, so much so that he would sacrifice anything to please her. This Mel, old enough to be my father, with his pants too short and his threadbare hoodie, carrying his lunch in a much used paper sack and carrying that same paper sack home with him for tomorrow's lunch, hurrying down that long hallway and out the door.  This Mel no longer has his Roberta by his side.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust… isn’t that what they say when one is laid to rest?

Mel, there is not a single time battling my dust rhino that I don’t think of you and Roberta. I hope this offers you a small comfort from your friend, an ocean away.         

My all-time favorite cartoonist, Gary Larson drew, among many other memorable panels, one titled the same as this entry. In fact I am ‘borrowing’ that caption from him. The cartoon features his trademark ‘housewife’: large of hip and wearing a flower-print dress and heels, horn rimmed glasses and hair done up in a beehive. She is holding an upright vacuum cleaner parallel to the ground, staving off a salivating gray rhino.

My name is not Roberta but I do have a dust rhino: my home. In the short time I was in Qing Dao my entire house – the floors, furniture and even the walls got coated in dust. To be perfectly fair I did remove the dust covers I had placed on the furniture before my trip to the States, and I hadn’t yet cleaned from that 5-week absence before I set off all over China, exploring again. So, in fact the accumulation of dust I speak of I figured I could clean all at once, after all of my summer traveling adventures. It promised to be an epic task. A rhinoceros sized task, to be exact.

I do know of a Roberta though. I’ve never met her in person but talked with her on the phone a few times. Her husband and I worked together. Never was there a man more devoted to his wife. His constant refrain: ‘Whatever she wants’.  Roberta had serious health issues. When she ailed he ran, no matter what job he was tackling while on the payroll. As his boss not only did I not blame him but actually encouraged him.

Mel was in his seventies when I joined the team. His children are older than I and here I am, his boss. Not that I ever took a ‘boss’ attitude. This man knew his job better than I ever could. The same went for most of my technicians. I had no illusions about it: never did I seek to direct their efforts. My job was to enable their abilities, be a buffer between upper management and them. I believe it was that management style that made me so successful. To this day, even though I now live on the other side of the world most of us still stay in touch whether they are retired or still on active duty. Every year, when I make my pilgrimage stateside I make a stop in Dallas for the exclusive purpose of visiting with my friends/former coworkers.

I miss them. What does that have to do with dust?

After living in Wuhan for 2 years, I still don’t know how to clean house. If I clean the living room the dining room is a dust heap. If I clean the office my bedroom is overcome. If I clean the bathroom within a  day it is dirty/dusty again. By the time I clean the kitchen the living room needs to be cleaned again. If I dust the surfaces the floors suffer and if I do the floor the surfaces end up coated. The cycle is neverending. Kind of like the neverending cycle of jams, preventive maintenance routines and bearing replacements on the machines Mel and the guys worked on. Kind of like the dust they had to sweep away to get to the things they had to repair.          

Would I have fewer dust problems if my house were carpeted? Probably fewer visible problems but my house would be dirty nonetheless. I’d have to wield the vacuum cleaner more often, like the Roberta in that cartoon panel. And, being as I moved into this apartment when everything was brand new and the complex was still being built I would have to deal with the toxic fumes from the carpet as well as the glues and the walls’ whitewash. If I had carpet I would probably have worse allergy symptoms. From a cleaning and health perspective it is better that I don’t have carpet.

From a ‘warmth in the winter’ perspective, I wish I did have carpet. Winter is coming up… but that is another issue.

I constantly ponder how to get and keep my house clean. I like a clean house but I don’t like to devote my life to cleaning it. How to battle that infernal dust rhino that the cartoon Roberta seems to have cornered?

As more apartments around this housing area are complete more and more people are moving in. During the height of summer, most run their air conditioners. You know it is hot when the people in the Over the Wall community run their air conditioners. Yet here I am, the only fool with windows and patio doors wide open!

Wide open window and patio doors. It occurred to me, walking home one day that seldom do I see a window in an apartment occupied by native Chinese flung all the way open, A/C running or not. Usually they have their windows open early morning or around dusk, and never one that opens directly in to a room. That reinforced the advice Sam gave me a while back in virtually those exact words. Maybe there is something to the opening and closing of windows I should explore. But first I had to get the house clean.

Resorting to the Chinese way of cleaning house – sloshing water all over everything and mopping it all up, I modified that practice by combining water with a laminated floor cleaner in a spray bottle. Then I put fresh dust liners on my nifty dust mop with its swivel head and took my floors to task after dusting all horizontal surfaces.

Two packs of disposable dust cloths later I am proud to report that it worked like a charm! The misted dust on the floor had no chance to go flying around and land on the furniture or elsewhere on some other part of the floor. I was ecstatic… until I saw the floor after it dried. Streaks, I tell you! Muddy streaks are all I got for my efforts! Until I figured out that I needed to buff the floor after it dries. And buff I did.

Oh Joy! Oh Miracle! Oh Donna Reed, goddess of housekeeping!!! My floors are beautiful! They reflect the furniture, the walls, the drapes. No more gray haze! No more dust rhino!

No more windows and doors flung wide open at my house.

I wish I could call that cartoon Roberta to tell her how to successfully banish her dust rhino. Pointless exercise, I know. She is a cartoon figure, dreamed up in the curious, over-imaginative mind of the long-since-retired Mr. Larson. I can’t call the real Roberta, either. She left Mel earlier this year, not for some mundane reason but because her time on this earth was over.

When I got the news, all the times that Mel confided in me, ranted at me, ran in my office in a panic to let me know his Roberta needed him and then dashing back out flashed through my mind. Tall, skinny, red-headed Mel, dumbfounded that this fantastic woman has seen fit to love him and forever in love with his Roberta, so much so that he would sacrifice anything to please her. This Mel, old enough to be my father, with his pants too short and his threadbare hoodie, carrying his lunch in a much used paper sack and carrying that same paper sack home with him for tomorrow's lunch, hurrying down that long hallway and out the door.  This Mel no longer has his Roberta by his side.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust… isn’t that what they say when one is laid to rest?

Mel, there is not a single time battling my dust rhino that I don’t think of you and Roberta. I hope this offers you a small comfort from your friend, an ocean away.