A Few of My Best Tricks

This title makes you think that you’re about to learn some great tips on keeping things clean around the house, right?

You’re not.

These are a few of my tricks. You know, the things that I do to keep from letting people see my deep, dark slob secrets.

My father in law spent the night last night so he and hubby could leave early this morning. No problem. Except that we weren’t going to be here when he got here. We had plans, so we just said for him to come on in and make himself comfortable.

Now, I’ve been doing better lately. I don’t panic when the doorbell rings. But I do run and shut the door to my master bedroom before I let someone in the house. And I guard that door with the eyes of a hawk. If anyone even walks in that general direction, I jump up and find a reason to walk with them. Our wedding picture hangs by the door to the master, and if they stop to say how much younger we looked (translate thinner) my heart beats a little faster.

So, to let someone in my house when I’m not here is a big risk for me. What if he looks in our closets?

My normal defense is to lock the master bedroom door. This was a great idea in our old house where the key for the master hung in the hall cabinets and the door could be easily opened if needed. The problem here? I can’t unlock the door without getting a screwdriver and taking off the entire doorknob. Since my husband would be getting home later than me last night, I didn’t think this was an option. My father-in-law would definitely have offered to help.

So I found a solution. No, not cleaning up the room, that would be crazy. Our light in there is part of a ceiling fan, and there is only one switch on the wall. So, if you pull the cord for the light, the wall switch will only turn on the fan, and the light will not come on. Since it would be dark by the time he got there, I just made it so that if he happened to try to peek in there (there’s a 99.9% chance that it would never occur to him to do that, but I can’t take that risk), if he tried to flip the light on, it wouldn’t work and he’d never see the room.

Other tricks I’ve used? When we lived in an apartment, our one bathroom had two doors, with one of the doors going into our master bathroom. It only locked from the bathroom side, since normal people probably only need to to lock people out of the bathroom, not out of the bedroom.

I would lock it anyway on that side, hoping that if they tried that door out of curiosity, that it being locked, even from their side, would deter them from looking. They would feel guilt about having tried to open a locked door, and would give up. Right? I tell myself that no one ever unlocked it and looked into the room, since no one ever ran out of the apartment immediately after leaving the bathroom.

I also hung curtains in our playroom because it’s an enclosed patio and there are windows from the gameroom/office into it. Fantastic for keeping an eye on my kids while I’m on the computer, but if we had people over, I didn’t want anyone to go to the playroom and be able to see into the crazy chaotic office/dumping ground.

How sad is it that this is how I use my creative problem-solving energy?