A couple of my relatives like to "help me clean." My house is not a sty, it's always sorta tidy, but they have OCD problems or something and compulsively clean.
This year, they've thrown away as garbage three seed-saving projects and a binder full of clipped recipes (irreplaceable of course) because they could not conceive of why I might have dried up old vegetables in a dish on the back countertop, and the binder apparently had only ONE large label on it that said "Recipes! Bon Appetit!" and when one of them opened it, there were "just a bunch of old newspaper clippings and notecards in it." They did not understand why buying me a new cookbook from Williams-Sonoma really was not an adequate replacement.
They've also cleaned the (granite) kitchen countertop with that wood spray wax preservative and cleaned the antique woodwork with Formula 409. I tried to make them sit down and relax, watch TV, to no avail. They tried to "help" unload DH's truck and managed to break an irreplaceable collectible he had bought as a Xmas gift for his brother. And they are both having a REALLY hard time with this idea that there are some things you cannot just buy another from the maul.
One tried to "help with the laundry" but so far has only destroyed one of DH's dress shirts and three dishtowels; then I had an excuse for them to stop "helping," so they're going home tomorrow morning.
Please, say you'll be a character witness for me...I can see the headlines now, "Murderer: They wouldn't stop touching my stuff!" At this point, I think I'd rather find the um...preservatives. At least those are a quick cleanup.
When I first found oil on the cat I should have went right then and investigated.
