Cleaning My Room

Cleaning My Room: A Child’s Lament

Cleaning my room is depressing
Cleaning my room makes me sad
Layers of dressing undressing
In piles on the floor of my pad.

Wheat bread and old peanut butter
Crammed under my bed in the dust
Pieces of crackers and cheeses
So old they are starting to rust

“How did this get in here?” Mom asks, all upset
I just shake my head and I shrug
But the next time I eat roasted sunflower seeds
I shove seven under the rug

My mom thinks a clean room is vital
To having me grow up a winner
I make up my bed in the morning
And tidy my toys before dinner

The highest shelf of my closet
Is way out of sight of us all
I stand on the top of the toy chest
Which makes me amazingly tall

Itchy wool socks end up missing
And hats I don’t like wind up tossed
But what Mom can’t see doesn’t hurt her
And that pink shirt just had to be lost

At bedtime I straighten the bookshelves
And line up my socks in the drawer
I plump up my teddy bears semi-weekly
And monthly I sweep up the floor

But when I’m all grown up and working
In comics, or maybe with frogs
I’ll leave all my things on the table
And roll on the floor with the dogs

I’ll eat on the couch when I want to
And wear the same socks every day
I’ll scatter my toys all over
When some of my friends come to play

I’ll tromp through the mud and get grubby
And wipe my hands clean on my shirt
And when I’m an old married hubby
I’ll spend all my time in the dirt

But where can I find me a sweetheart
Who wishes for grime in her life?
And doesn’t care if I am filthy
And still wants to be my dear wife?

There must be a girl out there somewhere
Who gets really muddy to play
And runs through the sprinkler with Sunday clothes on
No matter what her folks say.

I’ll find her someday I just know it
In a field or a barn or a puddle
Her neck and her elbows will show it
Her clothes will be all in a muddle

Just one part of her will be shining
And nice as the tidiest place
I’ll kiss her between the catsup and grime
On the square inch of clean on her face.

We’ll marry, live happily after
With our pets and our barn and our hay
We’ll eat burgers for breakfast and donuts at night
And we’ll wash when our moms come to stay

And someday we’ll have little babies
‘cause babies don’t like to be clean
and we’ll soap up together on Saturday nights
and stay dirty the week in between.

Cleaning my room is exciting
Cleaning my room is a song
Of days when all families will stomp through the mud
And cleaning your room will be wrong.