Do you ever have one of those days where something is stuck in your head and you can't get rid of it because you cannot to save your life remember where it came from? Well, I'm having that day.
It started out because I was thinking about how busy I've been cleaning house this week, between two birthday parties and out-of-town company—but then I realized that I'm always grateful to have people come over because that's when my house gets its tidiest. Sadly, the house has been even grungier than usual for the last couple months because I've been dealing with some seriously bone-crushing pregnancy fatigue, and I consider it a success just to have clean dishes for us to eat from and clean clothes for us to wear every day. After all, if we have freshly washed dishes, do my floors really need to be immaculate enough that I could eat off of them?
As I was contemplating the satisfaction of having a sparkling bathroom, and all the hard work I put in this past week, my mind wandered back to a name I used to get teased with in school when I was a kid: "Katie the Cleaning Lady". This was because at the time (late 1970s or early 1980s), a television commercial for some kind of cleaning product featured a character named Katie the Cleaning Lady. The fact that I remembered this was rather bizarre in and of itself, because while I'm pregnant, my short term memory is terrible, but somehow that portion of my brain devoted to the distant past dredged up the memory in conjunction with all my frantic bathroom and kitchen scrubbing. Now it's driving me insane because (and I know this is ridiculous) I cannot remember what product was being advertised! I even went out and googled it, with various spellings of Katie—and when Google failed me, I tried Yahoo and Altavista. No dice.
This must be my brain's idea of an April Fool's joke, but I'm not laughing. I know I'm going to lay awake tonight and not get any sleep because I can't remember . . .
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7 comments:
Hey Katie,
I think that Katie the Cleaning Lady was part of an advertising campaign for the product, "Spic and Span." I may be wrong, but that is my memory. Much love and appreciation to you for your efforts in cleaning my house while I was in the hospital. Your blog is beautiful. Lots of Love and clean dishes, and freshly laundered clothes!
Thanks, sis! Now I can get some sleep. I'm glad you like me blog. I thought this was a fun way to keep in touch. Hope you, Gavin, Phill and the girls are all well!
Thank you!!! This has been driving me crazy for years. My little sister was teases by all the church guys cause her name is Katie...fun stuff.
Your blog was the first thing that came up when I searched on Katie the Cleaning Lady. The commercial resides in a faint place in my head (I was born in '69), but I always remembered the phrase "Katie Katie, the cleaning lady". Not sure why the duplication of the first name in my memory, was it part of the commercial? I would love to find a copy of the commercial. I named my daughter Katie Cady with a giggle, knowing that no one in her generation would remember the commercial.
Here she is for Pine-Sol® in 1981:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-XIhmtdqLw&feature=player_detailpage#t=226s
Thanks, Todd! This has been bugging me for years--now I know it was Pine-Sol... which must explain my deep subconscious need to use that particular product!
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