Mop As Metaphor?

So I was mopping my house today, and thinking "gee, this may be the last time I use this particular mop" and so on. The mop in particular is an old-fangled string one, the best kind of mop. When those mops are new they are so-so. Not terribly moppy or absorbent and too sproingy and pouffy to wring out properly. It takes them a few weeks to lose their newness and become just right: stringy, squeezy and friendly to dirt. A boon to teak floors everywhere. A broken-in mop understands how to be a mike stand or dance partner in the mopping adventures of life.

Are you with me here? Good.

But then. After a while, a string mop begins to fall apart. It looks depressed and bits fall off. The strings thin. But you hang on, week after week, because once you buy a new mop you have to break it in all over again! So there you are, thinking "goodbye, old mop" and singing "Oooooh Danny Booooy", three-stepping through the dry patches and picking up bits of string as you go. Dragging out those last moments, because parting is such sweet sorrow. And thinking, "There must be a metaphor in this, somewhere".

But damned if I can find it.

Comments

Anonymous said…
...and then a bit of that tired ole mop gets caught on something, a relic from another era, perhaps a morris chair, and no matter how much you twist and bend it that ole mop stays stuck until you lift that memory up on high and set it down again. And though the ole mop continues on its way once again, you know sooner or later it will happen again...maybe with that newer mop that you'll be breaking in...

vicki
Anonymous said…
...cause that's just how mops are. They weave themselves in and out of things that we have placed or been given in our life and occasionally get entangled along the way...

vicki
HalfAsstic.com said…
BWAHAHA! Have I mentioned lately how much I DETEST mopping in general and how filthy my floors have to be before I will even sweep? Yeah. It's true!
But, Anonymous does have some wonderful metaphor's!
Nan Sheppard said…
Krissa, you should try living next to a bloody jungle. THE DUST! THE LEAVES! THE SCORPIONS AND TARANTULAS! Oh yes, I sweep, every day or so. Mopping not so much.
Vicki, the rocking Morris chair is the worst culprit, but I can usually slide it out onto the deck. How come olde furniture is so HEAVY?
Islandgirl said…
Just realised that today is about a month since I mopped..should I even be confessing that??
Anonymous said…
How come olde furniture is so HEAVY?
Easy...

DNA.

Human DNA.
Cat DNA.
Dog DNA.
Iguana DNA.
Chicken DNA.
Years and years of accumulated DNA.

:)

vicki
Anonymous said…
Which is why I stick to a sponge mop. The metaphors are SO much easier!
Cheffie-Mom said…
Out with the old, in with the new! Wait a minute, what's a mop? LOL!
Unknown said…
Old furniture is heavy 'cause it's old. It got to BE old because it's heavy and well made. There's a lot of old stuff like that. *wink*
Nan Sheppard said…
Lou, your harem loves your old self!
Nan Sheppard said…
Vicki, I like the DNA thing. So does old furniture have it's own DNA, eventually?
Anonymous said…
Does old furniture have it's own DNA, eventually?

Why yes.
We all are a hodgepodge of centuries of human DNA aren't we? So why should anything else be different. It's called evolution. And evolution doesn't stop...because the world hasn't stopped changing.
Now, imagine that micro universe on your Morris rocker and allllll that DNA combining and seeping into the tiny fissures of wood between the varnish and when conditions are right...BOOM!! A new organism is born!

vicki
Nan Sheppard said…
I KNEW that morris rocker was up to something!!