CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- "Company coming?" asked Celeste, lifting her feet from the coffee table long enough for me to dust underneath.

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

She pointed to my can of furniture polish.

"Bet that's older than me."

"Geoff won't let me use the leaf blower indoors anymore," I said. "Says it's too loud for everyday use, no matter how efficient it is for dusting."

"If there were power tools for cleaning," she said, "our house would be spotless."

My affinity for boy toys generally makes me better suited for Popular Mechanics than Better Homes & Gardens, but come spring, the compulsion to clean overtakes even me.

"Can't we just blame the dust on your grandma?" Celeste said. "Tell people she was agoraphobic and never left the house, so we spread her ashes indoors."

I dropped a few empty trash bags on Celeste's lap.

"Just the other day at work, my friend Penny was telling me how her husband once had this nasty old pair of shoes he absolutely refused to get rid of," I said. "The smell from those shoes was horrific, but he wouldn't part with them, so Penny quietly rubbed bacon grease all over those shoes, and his dog chewed them to pieces. Problem solved."

"You're sharing this -- why?"

"I've been saving bacon grease," I said. "You might want to spend some time cleaning your room before the dogs and I do."

My husband, the least messy member of our household, was cleaning the refrigerator. The kitchen is his domain. I relinquished control after Celeste claimed my cooking was causing her jaw muscles to overdevelop.

"Any idea what this is?" Geoff asked, lifting the lid of a container just enough for me to see the furry rainbow growing inside and catch a whiff reminiscent of my childhood in Nitro.

"If you can't identify it, you can't eat it," I said. "Throw it out."

"But the container's still good," he said.

"It's glowing."

"It'll probably wash out OK," he said. He held up another container. "How about this? You recognize this?"

"Are those roots growing through the bottom?" I asked.

Geoff: "Cool."

I returned to my dusting, trying hard to ignore the distracting squeals of delight as Geoff discovered new life forms in our refrigerator. He was singing loudly as he worked, altering the lyrics in that oh-so-adorable-except-to-teenagers way that he does. It wasn't until I heard a "Hey!" and a "Stop that!" that I grew concerned and decided to investigate.

Celeste, looking guilty, fled the room as I entered.

Standing before the open refrigerator, Geoff looked confused.

"Any idea why she was trying to rub bacon grease on me?" he asked. "The dogs won't leave me alone."

Fumes from the trash clouded my brain.

"I don't know why she did it," I heard myself say. "But you should leave it alone. It's good for your skin."

Reach Karin Fuller at karinful...@gmail.com.