I won a contest the other day. A contest on Blogher put on by the wonderful people at Nutrabella who invented the Belly Bar—which are pretty tasty I might add. Tastier than Luna Bars. All I did was type in a little blurb about why I’m a “super mom” (ha ha) and they picked my entry and gave me $100 free cleaning service! Hot Dog! I’ve never had cleaning service before.

I had no idea what to expect. I was meaning to blog about it so I could ask you guys what it would be like because I had all kinds of questions. Like, is it kosher to ask them to clean your microwave and under the sink where your trash can goes… with all the fly-away coffee grounds and that encrusted junk that leaked from a bottle of something toxic about a million years ago? Or do they charge extra for that? Are they going to look at me like I’m some kind of scummy pig? Am I supposed to make a list of things I want cleaned or do they have a standard routine like the cleaning ladies at hotels? But I never got around to blogging about it so I had to go it alone this morning.

Boy, was I in for a surprise. Wowie Zowie. I got the royal treatment. Six cleaning ladies showed up at my door. SIX of them!!! They took my house by storm. All of a sudden my large living room felt very small as they hauled in their trays of mysterious cleaning sprays and rags and three vacuum cleaners. Only one spoke English and she directed the rest of them like an army general. When I asked her if she could clean my microwave and my scary trash can cupboard she shrugged as if it was nothing. Of course she could! Silly woman, we are here to clean.

Just like that two girls started scrubbing my stove, all my cupboards and the sink and the floor. Two others attacked my vertical blinds and dusted every horizontal surface in my living room. The other two headed straight for my bathroom and all I heard from them for the next two hours was my water turning on and off and long paragraphs of staccato sentences in Spanish. I’m sure they were discussing how dirty Americans are.

Toby was sleeping when the cleaning crew arrived but he quickly woke up from all the commotion. Good thing I had warned him they were coming the night before but I didn’t say anything about an army of six showing up. I was expecting two, maybe four. It’s quite another thing when your whole house gets taken over. Thankfully, Toby was quickly wowed by their whirlwind efficiency and he scooted out to our front porch to have a cup of coffee with Baby Bug and I. (No coffee for Baby Bug of course, she had Cheerios.) We all just sat there kind of dazed. Our house is usually pretty quiet and sleepy on a Saturday morning. Nothing like this ever happens.

After about two hours of shooting the breeze on the patio, I was instructed to come inside and inspect their work. Oh. My. Goodness. I have never ever EVER seen my house SO clean before. I bet even when it was first built, way back in the fifties, it wasn’t this clean. I’ve probably told you that Sugar Ray used to live here before us (when they were just a bunch of punks smokin’ weed) and they royally trashed the place before we moved in. I thought the dinginess was permanent. Sure, I’ve scrubbed it up a lot but not anything like what it went through today. I think the whole place is a different color. Scary. I’m starting to really have an inferiority complex as a housewife. My sink alone is a work of art in white porcelain. The shower! The tile is smooth and squeaky! There is no residue at all! The tub that has no finish left on it and is usually smudged with permanent black stains, is white. White as bleach. And it smells like it too. We had to leave the windows open for a few hours because they used some pretty strong stuff in there.

Whatever it is they did, I could get used to this. The Director/Captain cleaning woman told me that next time they come they will get things much cleaner. It was almost as if she was apologizing that things weren’t clean enough. She has no idea how blown away I am. I had really given up hope on my bathroom. Too bad I didn’t have this done before the Pinkkkkkity First Birthday party.

Even so, it’s really nice. I can now say that the entire house, except for Toby’s office, is completely baby proof. With our fancy new cat box, Baby Bug can now crawl/toddle from room to room without me having to worry about anything. There are no longer any scary corners (ie: behind the toilet) with grunge and scum that I have to chase her away from.

Sigh. It is a beautiful thing.

But it gets better! Toby was soooo impressed that he said I could hire the cleaning brigade to come four times a year. Can you believe it? This from the guy who thinks I’m already spoiled rotten and living the life of luxury because I get to stay home and play with my kid all day long? I might as well go play at Tiffany’s with his charge card and get my nails done every day. I’m this close to becoming one of those Orange County housewives everybody makes fun of. But not really. Not yet.

I can see why people do this weekly. I’m afraid to cook or use my sink because I might mar the beauty. Already, I cooked scrambled eggs and flopped a lumpy piece of half cooked egg onto my perfectly white stove. It was horrible. I almost burned my fingers trying to keep the vile piece of egg from contaminating the cleanliness. What am I going to do? I can’t cook anything with tomato sauce or oil. It will ruin the magic.

I’d take pictures but they wouldn’t do it justice. You’ll just have to use your imagination.