I saw the new Downton Abbey film that was recently released, and I loved it  Everyone from Lady Mary to the scullery maids are preparing for the arrival of the King and Queen of England, and the estate is in an uproar!

It kind of reminds me of when my daughters return home from college with boyfriends. Places that have not seen the light of day get cleaned.

The difference is that the only servants I have to help are Mr. Clean, an assortment of emollients, and a vacuum cleaner with a wand that should really have another name. In my book, wands should simply be waved for the mess to disappear. They shouldn’t be attached to a ball and chain you have to drag from room to room by a snake you have to wrestle to keep it from gobbling up tennis shoes, slippers, and the occasional cat that doesn’t move fast enough.

When it comes to cleaning devices, the engineers who design them should be required to use them for a year before foisting them on the general cleaning public. I bet they’d be very different: lighter, less cumbersome….and I bet they’d have a built-in cup holder, a slot to recharge cell phones, and speakers. Who wants to whistle while you work when you can dance or sing?

Oh yes, and every vacuum should come  equipped with its own light-weight, fold-out hydraulic lift that would hoist that sofa, bed or love seat right off the floor for cleaning underneath! That would solve a multitude of problems! Why, the last time I was able to vacuum under our bed, the dust bunnies had become hippos.

And how about a seat? If my neighbor can enjoy zooming around on his riding lawn mower, why can’t I have the same pleasure on a vacuum? It’s a similar concept, right? (Please note: comments from the peanut gallery about seats on brooms and women in pointy hats will not be appreciated, even if Halloween is just around the corner)

If I think back to the time of Downton Abbey, I was clearly born in the wrong era. And probably the wrong class. I’m pretty sure that if anyone on the British side of my ancestry had been aristocracy, I’d know about it. Most likely, if I were part of an estate like Highclere Castle, where the fictional Downton Abbey takes place, and we were preparing for the arrival of royalty, I’d be among the household polishing silver to appoint the 120-person state dinner table, using a teensy tiny brush not much bigger than a toothbrush, or on my hands and knees with a rag, scrubbing the floors of the 61-bedroom estate.

I guess I’ll forget about time travel and stick with Mr. Clean and dragging my ball and chain around our three-bedroom “estate.”

This editorial was published in the October 10 issue of Beyond the Nest’s weekly newsletter.

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