I lost my keys, and being in that state of advanced desperation where you search for your keys in the most unlikely of spots, I made the mistake of looking beneath our armoire.
This ungainly piece of furniture has a mere inch or two gap between its lower face and the floor. Better it should have a higher clearance, or no gap at all, but instead, there is this little gap that resists brooms and vacuum wands.
Of course, tidy people would approach this difficulty by moving the armoire so they could dust beneath it at decent intervals. Or maybe they’d wrap a coat hanger with a dust cloth and slither around on their bellies, stabbing into the darkness. Really, who knows what lengths tidy people might go to? Not us, that’s for certain. We choose to ignore that space entirely between the times we paint the bedroom.
So, anyway, looking for my keys, I turned on the flashlight on my phone and peered into the gap, but still couldn’t see very well, because the gap was so low. So I took some blind pictures with the flash, and they revealed a horrifying yet charming landscape of dereliction: a dollhouse version of the Blair Witch Project, in which three lost mice are hopelessly trapped in nightmare landscape of dust bunnies and cobwebs.
And, ironies of ironies, while I did not find my keys, I did find a lost vacuum cleaner attachment.
(Apologies for any trauma these images have caused our tidy friends.)
Look on the positive side. You’ve got a nice fir floor!
Yes, there’s comfort in that! The floor under the armoire is also nicely unmarred…unlike the rest of it. ;p
You are my people.
Hah, I just did a similar thing yesterday in our upstairs areas. Feather’s from the pillow, dust…cat toys. Yep, it was all there.
Finding your lost vacuum attachment is the best irony I’ve heard lately! We’re not tidy people so much, but we often have to move furniture in search of our cat’s favorite toy, which usually ends up there. Keeping up with the dust is a losing battle, though!
Dust happens. Life is still good!
refrigerator condenser cleaning brush – about $6-7 at the hardware store. also great for retrieving change and wedding rings that roll under the washer.
I can’t imagine the lives of those tidy people. 🙂 And SCORE! Vacuum attachment found! I do hope the keys turn up, too.
Hee Hee Hee. Definitely laughing/horrified WITH you on this one, as my keys also mysteriously disappeared themselves yesterday! I, too, am having to root around in all of the gobliny/MissHavisham’sVortex places under low furniture in search of them. Not pretty. May our keys both return soon! #whenspringcleaningisthrustuponyou 😉
As we say at my house : “KonMari that shit!” The other favorite (serious/not serious), is “Tidy tidy tidy!” 😉
The trackball from my mouse rolled under a piece of furniture in my living room that has a very similar wilderness under it–in fact most of my furniture grows cobwebs. I didn’t find the trackball. What I did find was a cat toy and a dog toy. The next day, the cat found the trackball. The cobwebs will remain.
As I write these lines, I can see the fine layer of dust coating the oak floor underneath the couch that cannot be reached by the vacuum cleaner attachment. What’s important in these situations is having a clear division of labor: even if it’s MY knitting needle that rolled under the couch, it’s my husband’s job to go scouting and retrieve it.
In our house, it would have been all the hair elastics that our cats have ever “helped” me misplace.
I spent a day looking for a lost set of keys (many years ago) after I foolishly allowed my toddler son to play with them. Keys are not play things. He had dropped them in the zippered compartment of my husbands cello case. I laugh now!
I love when I open the windows for the first time in spring and the dog hair is blown out from underneath various pieces of furniture. Or do I hate it?