Some things never change, no matter how much you wish that they would.

Take housework for example. I have never been especially fond of housework. No sooner do you get the whole house clean than it’s time to go back and start all over again.

I suppose you could overcome this problem by cleaning the place and then sealing it up in plastic for a while. That works well with the winter clothes I have dry cleaned in June. Of course, I’ve been known to go all the way to a cold December before I unbag them.

One of the reasons I went back to work after all our children were in school was to earn enough money so I could hire someone to do the housework for me.

Our eight children were certain that the only reason they existed was to do the housework. I sometimes thought the only reason they existed was to create the housework.

After many years of keeping the snow shovel on the front porch all year round so visitors could shovel their way into the house after we opened the door, and coincidentally after several of our kids got married and moved on, I was ready to hire a housekeeper.

I read the ads in The Daily Advocate and then I called the number in one of them for details. First, the house had to be in good order. I almost gave up right there. But, I smelled the possibility of a dream coming true. First the house had to be in good order.

After we got everything in order, it didn’t look like we needed a housekeeper. But, I had been playing this game too long not to know what tomorrow would bring. The housekeeping service was hired to come in once each week to do all the nitty-gritty work I never seemed to get done.

”l grant that it was really rough getting all the clutter out of the way so the service could clean each week, but the rewards were great! And the price was reasonable.

After a while, I began to notice little things were not getting done, and the price was up. Then my stay-at-home neighbor told me that the housekeeping service was only at our house 10 minutes maximum each week.

We asked my mother to come over and house sit the next cleaning day to see what was happening. Our neighbor was right. They stayed about 10 minutes, and very little cleaning was happening.

I called the service to complain, and guess what. They had sold out to another company, but not to worry, the new people were all bonded. Seemed like a waste of money to bond them. They weren’t in the house long enough to steal anything.

After that, different family members would come in weekly and clean the house when they were short of money. Now they’re all doing well so they’re no longer interested in extra money. In fact, I think they’re thinking of a way to get someone to clean their homes. So we were back to square one. We clean our house ourselves every month whether it needs it or not.

But, now we are retired! There are only the two of us here most of the time. Keeping up with the housework should be no problem at all. Of course not! We can always put the snow shovel back on the front porch all year round.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This column was first published in the Daily Advocate January 31, 1996.