Wednesday, October 24, 2007

What my sofa says about me...

Surprisingly it's not - "you have allowed me to be systematically destroyed by your cats over the last 10 years and you don't vacuum underneath me enough, you let the kids spill food and drink all over me (and worse) and don't mop up the spills in a timely fashion, you let them jump up and down on me, let your pissed mates sleep on me, allow cat hair to accumulate all over me and never once let me squish a cat using my sofa bed mechanism even though they were crying out for it. I hate you!"

Apparently it's this (plagiarised from the Sydney Morning Herald, which got it from the Herald Sun). (click on link for quiz)

Mostly Bs: Empire Builder
Family and status are of equal importance and this is reflected in your taste where tradition and comfort carry great weight. As an Empire Builder, your decorating style is elegant and refined, although it sometimes lacks creativity.
In your choice of fabrics and finishes, you aspire to five-star hotel luxury, which is always pleasing and comfortable but sometimes bland and never challenging. You are inspired by a range of classic styles including town and country, British colonial, French provincial and romantic Victoriana.
Empire Builders like fine furnishings, elegant window treatments, formal wallpapers, Oriental rugs and matching Far Eastern antiques (from reputable dealers in upmarket shopping districts with certificates of authenticity).
You keep a clean house and like nothing out of place. Your feminine side, however, makes exceptions for pretty textiles, wallpapers of toile, moires or ticking and lots of family photos.

Elegant, refined, 5 star hotel, luxury, Far Eastern Antiques? How did I end up with this? Perhaps it is my penchant for English Manor houses which I am never going to own, but perhaps courtesy of a National Heritage Trust membership may one day get to stickybeak in.

and

Mostly Fs: Refuseniks
Refuseniks object to convention, so it's not surprising that in your approach to interior design and decoration, anything goes. You are a rule breaker, some say trendsetter, who may be an artist, a writer, an intellectual or a never-quite-made-it lazy bohemian bum.
Refuseniks love to explore the wellspring from which art and design is inspired. Their homes can be grand or modest, but a visitor will feel they have entered unfamiliar territory. The Refusenik decorating style is an exercise in extremes.
You are an adherent of chaos theory to the extent that it might provide a new way of dining, sleeping or entertaining. You're convinced that in a past life you lived in Prague Castle or Beijing's Forbidden City.
In a perfect world, Refuseniks would live in a sanctuary of unique furnishings, kind lighting and curious antiquities and art. At worst, your style is a conundrum; at best it's too cool for school.

Unfamiliar territory, chaos theory, well this is closer but probably not in the way they intended.

Thinking back to the reality of my house as I left it this morning at speedso I wouldn't have to look at the mess anymore because I was running late it was more like this:

Your ten year old sofa bed is displaying signs of being a scratching post and sleep station for your numerous cats over the years. Your children like eating sausage rolls as evidenced by the scattering of crumbs all over the loungroom floor. You are too lazy tired to pick up after them which is why there is a trail of discarded clothing, cutlery and plastic dinner ware strewn around the floor. Artwork is likely to be of the 'naive preschool' school and stuffed under the spare bed in the computer room. Attempts to call it a study only confuse the children. It too shows signs of sausage roll addiction, with added unidentifiable liquid stains on the carpet.

Your hallway is a statement of why dark blood reds should only be used on feature walls that never have anyone even remotely close to them, and not in busy spaces where toothbrushes loaded with toothpaste, chocolately fingers, and sharp edged items can all damage the paint surface. The bedrooms all scream "for gods sake vacuum woman". The bathrooms say a bit of cleaning the shower and bog wouldn't go astray and maybe even a mop of the floor once in a while you lazy beast. The laundry has given up in disgust after being made recipient of the cat litter box.

The pantry challenges you to find anything, anything at all and the green bags only look like they are multiplying until you try and find enough to fit the weekly shop in. Mostly they just look at you accusingly as you throw another batch of plastic bags onto the mound. The kitchen floor reproachfully shows off its multiple marks on cream tiles which you steadfastly ignore, knowing that any attempts to clean it will be quickly thwarted by a child with an a)iceblock or b) biscuit, c)a cat vomiting (because they will only vomit on clean tiles), or d) a husband.

Your attempts to clean up the toys in the rumpus room, which you like to kid yourself will one day be a library/formal lounge, come undone when the children immediately start playing with all the toys you had slated for giving to charity because the children never play with them. You only have yourself to blame for not sneaking them out of the house immediately. Upon drawing back the curtains to let in the afternoon light you notice that the carpet underneath the curtains is white with cat hair from where the oldest cat likes to sleep in the sun all day, before retiring to your bed at night and trying to sneak between you while you sleep. You regret thinking this was cute when she was a kitten.

The less said about the garden the better. The vegie patch could be quite good, if you were a cow bovine and able to eat all the grass growing in it. Realistically you will probably never dig up and eat the potatoes that are growing optomistically. You will probably never plant the seeds that are currently being irradiated next to the answering machine.

Now that's much more like me.

4 comments:

Mousicles said...

NSFW!

Very funny. Your house is brilliant and certainly is not in the dire need of cleaning that you describe it.

Cats and kids are more important that housework anyday!

Mindy said...

You know, when I got home yesterday I realised it was actually worse than I remembered. I have to admit that any visitors usually bring on about a 2hr flurry of cleaning.

Mousicles said...

Should we visit more, or less? :)

Regular cleaning flurries are good for the soul. I certainly clean the house thoroughly before going away for the weekend. It's so nice to come home to a clean house....

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

I definitely clean up as much as I can before going away. coming home to a crappy home makes me (even more) cranky!

and it's a fine line between wanting people to come over so you have to tidy up, and having people come over too often so you have to tidy up. but in general at the moment I think I need people to come over a bit more often...