Wish I had a Dusting Droid, I do. Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it – dusting droid? You see, I detest dusting. It is my least favorite task to do around the house. On the surface, it should be one of the easiest, quickest jobs to tackle – but it isn’t. At least not in our house. As my mother would say, we have “a lot of stuff” out and about, displayed on pretty much every surface, so that when it comes to that simple dusting duty, “a lot of stuff” has to be removed, the surface cleaned, and then each item on display needs to be dusted before returning it to its proper place.

Oh my goodness! I get exhausted just thinking about all the work involved! 😉 More than anything, dusting is time-consuming – and when I’m doing it, I can think of tens of things I’d rather be doing. Wouldn’t you? 😉

When tasked with this unpleasant job, I always think back to the scene in “The Phantom Menace” where young, sweet Anakin is showing Padmé his room and all the goodies he has crammed into it. Padmé is intrigued, and then Anakin shows her the half-finished protocol droid he is building “to help Mom.” I’ve always interpreted Anakin meant C3PO was created to help Shmi around their home, but that really isn’t the designated use of a protocol droid [which Anakin most decidedly calls C3PO]. That is neither here nor there. Over time, the droid was cast into all sorts of situations, and while he may have balked at some tasks, he certainly adapted himself. Thus, I could see C3PO as a Dusting Droid. I could use one right about now.

Why? It’s that time of year again. The trees are leafing out. Robins and other birds that have been absent for months have returned to the Northern Hemisphere. Flowers are in bloom. I’ve got spring fever, and along with that comes my penchant for spring cleaning – the chance to spruce up our home to make everything spic-n-span clean. Where to start? I recently mulled that over … I either could start with the room that would be the easiest to tackle or dive right into the most time-consuming room to complete. In the end, I opted for the latter. That meant our Star Wars Room would get the roll-up-the-sleeves treatment first. What a chore it was! When completed – an endeavor that took four long days – every surface was devoid of dust [until the next legion of particles settled 😉 ], every fabric was vacuumed, and every piece of “stuff” was put back in place, but not before a cloth was swiped across every nook and cranny to give it a nice, shiny look.

Oh, what I would have given to have a Dusting Droid at my disposal. 😉

Would you like to see some photographs of the finished product? I’d love to share them with you. Here they are:

Years ago, Hallmark sold 1,500-piece puzzles of “A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back”. Unfortunately, the company never offered a puzzle of “Return of the Jedi” to complete the trilogy.

I commissioned one of my daughter’s closest friends to paint one of my favorite scenes from the OT on the glass top of our coffee table. I love the way it turned out!

I call this my “Luke Corner” [even though there is plenty of “Luke” scattered about our Star Wars Room]. Fitting for my favorite character. 🙂

Do you think Padmé ever cleaned her own apartment? The royal palace on Naboo? Do you think Princess Leia ever was sent to her room on Alderaan, and told she couldn’t emerge until every piece of furniture survived the white-glove test? The Lars homestead on Tatooine looked well-cared for, and for some reason I always thought Aunt Beru was personally responsible for keeping every surface sand-free, yet it probably wouldn’t take a stretch of the imagination to believe that she may have had the help of a cleaning droid. Maybe C3PO? When that wind comes sweeping down the plain, blowing sand everywhere, it would be quite the feat to cleanse each nook and cranny of the gritty substance. Maybe Aunt Beru did have some help. I can only hope. 🙂

Until next time, MTFBWY 🙂

I invite you to leave a comment below. Do you have a cleaning story you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it. 🙂 Or please feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].

Two hundred seventeen days, and counting…

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