Ask a Clean Person: Where the Heck Have You Been?!?

Here, there, and everywhere

13 years ago today, the first "Ask a Clean Person" column appeared on The Hairpin. In the 13 years since I've … well who cares what I've done, really? I've worked, I've played, I've loved some people a little too much and others not nearly enough. I endured the pandemic along with the rest of you. I had a midlife crisis! That part was actually really fun.

The important thing to me — and hopefully to you, too — is that we're still here, and you know my spooky ass loves a 13 moment. So to celebrate AaCP’s lace, fur, and textiles anniversary, I'm going to do some old fashioned Ask a Clean Person-ing, in newsletter form. You gotta Q? I gotta A! Email me: joliekerr@gmail.com.

While I wait for you to find me, I'm gonna just do some stuff. I don't really know what that stuff will be … and won't that be fun for us all! I think we're a little short on weird, unpredictable fun these days.

(The Stuff will be about cleaning.)

Here's a thing I'd like to say to you: CleanTok is amazing and you should absolutely not do anything you see people doing on CleanTok in your own homes! CleanTok is entertaining, because it's entertainment, but the cleaning methods on display aren't ones you should replicate with your actual stuff. The boring truth of keeping a clean home is that it takes very little actual elbow grease, and even fewer products, but you do have to do it all the time. But listen, I promised you fun, not boring truths, so here are two articles I wrote about CleanTok that will hopefully satisfy the fun requirements around here!

As The World Burns, Cleanfluencers Tidy Up | Bustle, 1 November 2023

3 TikTok Cleaning Hacks You Should Skip—and One Worth Trying | Better Homes & Gardens, 21 July 2022

Sidebar: I've been a weekly contributor to Better Homes & Gardens for almost two years now, which is … bananas. Like, how are they allowing the queen of the jizz stains to write for such an august publication?!? It's wild to me, but it somehow is allowed and I take a great deal of pride in the work I've done for BHG. A collection of my articles can be found here should you want to sift through them. The one about the birdbath is my favorite — there is A Line, and you will know it when you see it :)

Missed you, mean it!

JK

pee ess: OMG I almost forgot — it's March, you guys, happiest LAMOB!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you still making your beds???