JUST LIKE MAGIC

When I was a kid, there were these cool markers that wrote with magical disappearing ink. You could write a secret message, then watch the words on the paper vanish right before your eyes. To make the words reappear, you simple colored over the apparently blank paper with a different magic marker. Voila! Your secret message was revealed!

And then there is the reverse kind of magic. Instead of disappearing until summoned forth, a thing reappears spontaneously, no matter how hard you try to remove it. Like the blood stains on Lady Macbeth's hands: "Out, damned spot!" No matter how thoroughly she scrubs, the spot reappears.

That second kind of magic is the kind infecting all my housework.

I washed all the laundry today. Washed, dried, folded, put away...all the laundry baskets were empty. Were empty. Now, magically, before the day is done, dirty clothes again occupy the baskets in the laundry room.

I washed dishes last night before I went to bed. This morning, magically, there were dirty dishes in the sink.

I cleaned the bathroom last Thursday. Today, toothpaste spatters the mirror and soap scum rings the bathtub.

I swept the floors Saturday evening. This evening, the floors are crunchy.

In the words of Gilderoy Lockhart, "It's just like magic!"