Yesterday was the last

Yesterday was the last business day of the year and most employees spent their afternoon cleaning.

At the printer's across the street, they washed and buffed the delivery trucks and the forklift. In restaurants, wait staff dusted picture frames and scrubbed all the corners that are normally overlooked. In the subways, uniformed cleaning staff halted esclators and scraped out the grooves of the stair treads.

I was not quite possessed with the fervor year-end cleaning though I have done a fairly good job with other loose ends. Cleaning will happen today as I bleach the kitchen counters, finish removing fingerprints from windows, and mop all the floors. Maybe I'll even break down the cardboard boxes in the garage so they can be recycled next week.

I'd better go don my cleaning uniform--an apron and rubber gloves. I usually skip the high heels and pearls but you can call me Mrs Cleaver, anyway.