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I went baby-sitting yesterday (I am a confirmed dork, but at least I don't still have braces), so I'm rather exhausted today. Yes, I had a two-year-old boy who literally screamed and tried to push me away with all his baby might rather than take a nap once Daddy left. Sigh.

The family bothers me a bit. I have no problem with the people, of course; they're a husband and wife and their twin four-year-old girls and a baby boy who's two. The dad is funny, the mom is sweet (she used to be a teacher of mine) the twins are affectionate and mischievous, and the baby is darling when he's not tired.

But their house is just... a mess. My parents are frenetically neat, so I'm not saying I'm a neat freak. I actually believe in a room that is "comfortably cluttered" because if a space is too orderly, it seems impersonal and not lived-in. But their house... the first time I visited there, the girls were two and the boy was newborn so I forgave the mom for having dirty dishes in the sink and toys all over the floor. I even forgave the uncleared table and slightly sticky chairs- there's only so much one working woman can do with three little kids who seem bent on making messes.

It's gotten worse. Once I came over and, out of pity, did the dishes, because they'd forgotten to pay the garbage man and had several plastic bags stuffed with week-old trash at the end of their sidewalk and piling up in the kitchen. The living room and computer room are never clean. I can forgive that, too- it happens to everybody. The kids are chubby and happy and well-loved, the family gets along, there is no need to be upset with a little mess.

But this time, I came over and there was a pile of dirty dishes that crowded the counters as well as the sink, with the food caked on from days ago, three plastic bags full of trash in the kitchen, all the furniture was sticky, dirty laundry lay in piles around the living room and on the dining room floor, a broom lay on the floor in the kitchen, surrounded with dead leaves, spilled tomato sauce, and something that made my shoes stick to the floor, and the vacuum lay on the carpet in the living room, which was spattered with food, a few pieces of dirty cutlery... and the kids had apparently gotten creative with green paint in the upstairs bathroom: handprints all over the wall, the rug, and green water in the toilet. A paintbrush dipped in the color the wall was originally was dried stiff on the counter. The fridge, as I discovered later, was full of dozens of Subway six-inch sandwiches that were beginning to mold. It looked like the kids had been living there by themselves for weeks, and every time the parents started to clean up, they lost interest and left things there.

It wasn't just mess, it was... squalor. That was the word that came to my head. And I almost picked up the phone to call child services, because the smell in the house turned my stomach and even though I didn't want to take kids away from their loving parents, it was obvious the parents needed a wake-up call. I almost left a note: "I'll keep the kids at my house while you clean up."

The dad apologized profusely for the mess before he left, saying things had been crazy since his wife was out of town for a few days, but that kinda stuff doesn't just happen in a few days- especially since the wife had taken the twin girls with her, and it was just hubby and baby for days in that house, alone. Did he think it wasn't his responsibility to clean up, too?

I hate to sound like a snob. I always got furious with my dad when he used ridiculous hyperbole in describing the state of my room. "It had trash everywhere, and I almost threw up, it was so disgusting," he'd rave, and I'd look at the full trash can my brother had forgotten to take out, a few stuffed animals, and a stack of folded clothes in a chair. Maybe some homework in progress at my desk, or magazines on the floor by my bed. I wish I could have shown him this house, just down the street...

So, what do I do? It's a heavy judgment call. I kept making excuses for them, like, "it's not that bad" and "they have three little kids to take care of" or "I'm sure it's not like this all the time." Truly, I've never seen it as bad as it was yesterday, but it's never been clean. Isn't that unhealthy, or something? I don't know. All I know is how relieved I was to get up off the sticky upholstery and go home at the end of the night. Some kind of smell clung to my clothes.

I got home and cleaned my room.

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