Vamana Ahuja

Children Stories Comedy Drama

5.0  

Vamana Ahuja

Children Stories Comedy Drama

Uncle Percy Does The Cleaning

Uncle Percy Does The Cleaning

4 mins
580


 I feel like I'd rather stay on a different planet, and not with Uncle Percy. Don't get me wrong; he's pretty fun, but the craze factor is super high. Tamara, Pepper, Tyson, Millie, Rebecca (my cousins) and I love visiting Baltimore, but to see Aunt Maureen. Uncle drives us nuts. Now, onto the misadventure that took place when uncle did the spring cleaning.

The house was a total mess. We went to the beach a few weeks ago, and there, we ended up bringing home sand, and more than a few crabs. Aunt Maureen was furious to see her precious car contaminated with the boot full of saline water, sand, crabs, shells and other beach gunk. It was all uncle's job to clean it, but, as usual, he procrastinated and in the end, aunt was the one who did it. So she had a little surprise in for uncle: he had to do the spring cleaning.

 "The mops are in the left cupboard, the detergents to the right and the buckets and dusters in the middle. Anything else," asked aunt as she got ready to take a nap. "Yes, why can't you do the cleaning? I won't be able to do it alone." "Oh, but you won't be. The kids are there to keep you company," aunt retorted to uncle's whining.


So we began. Tamara started to dust some cabinets. Pepper and I took charge of sweeping. The little kids, as usual, had a few crazy ideas in mind. They strapped hand dusters on to their feet, and spilt water all over the living room, I knew where they got this idea from: the hockey matches we were watching last night. The soap as the ball, they proceeded to skate on the water, falling all the time, until all that was left was washing off the soap, which was uncle's job.

 Suddenly, we heard a loud commotion from the storage room. The three of us (Tamara, Pepper and I) ran into the room and saw something that sent us into hysterics. Who should be standing there but uncle, looking like a monster from a little kid's horror movie. He had a mop in one hand, a duster in the other, a bucket on his head, a tin can in the other and cleaning spray all over himself. He took one step out of the cleaning cupboard and down he went, tumbling on the stairs. When the triplets saw him, their reaction was totally different. "Monsterrrrr," Tyson hollered, rolling his 'r's. The three of them then proceeded to beat him up with their mops, until the bucket came off of his head and they saw their beloved uncle black and blue. "Sowy uncle," Millie whimpered.


"Umm, is the work done," uncle asked hopefully. "Nope, your share of work is left, and then we have to clean the stairs and the upper part of the house." "Aw man. What do I have to do?" "You have to dry all the areas we mopped and just do the finishing touches," instructed Tamara, forgetting who she was talking to. "We'll start cleaning upstairs."

We repeated the same process upstairs. This time, though, we joined the triplets in their game of hockey. Once it was done, we went down to tell uncle we were starting with the rooms and he could finish with the hall. But what a shock we were in for! The living room was a mess, there were soap suds all over the sofas, the recliner looked as if the cat had scratched it, and uncle was nowhere to be found.


 We decided it was better to first survey and do the remaining clean up ourselves, but as we were starting, uncle tumbled out of the kitchen, looking like a catalogue for all the mess in the living room. He was covered in soap suds, patches of leather from the recliner, and a few new bruises. "What happened," we asked. "Well I tried to dry the floor, but I slipped on the soapy water and fell. I tried to use the recliner as something to stop my fall, but I only ripped it."

"You will help us do the rooms, right," Pepper asked. "I don't think so," uncle moaned. Suddenly, we heard a shout. "What happened to the recliner? Why is the house such a mess?" Aunt Maureen was awake. Without thinking twice, I said, "Uncle did it!" "Oh god, Percy! Why did I even trust you with this? And right now we have to wash all the curtains!" "Doesn't that fall under washing day," I asked, and got such a glance from aunt that I suddenly felt not visiting Baltimore at all wasn't such a bad idea.


For the next hour, we washed drapes, curtains and mats. Aunt did next to nothing and uncle, on account of his 'bruises' got out of the work. Then we dusted a bit more and re-mopped the floor. With aunt watching us like a hawk, we couldn't play our game and had to do everything the normal way. Well, only two more weeks to go.  



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