There was a little throwdown at Popcorn Friday at the elementary school last week. Somehow, with five moms and one dad huddled around a popcorn maker and 400 brown bags of kernels popped, the subject of being so busy they don’t even have time to clean the house came up.

And one mom pointed out that Stephanie – the brunette holding a shaker of Ranch flavoring in her hand - did not mop her kitchen floor.

A little sigh of relief went through the group.

Then came the rest: “She wipes it by hand.”

This caused a disturbance. I feared she would be banned from Popcorn Friday.

What’s wrong? she asked.

Nothing, we assured her, looking away.

I didn’t want to admit that I’d just paid my kids $1 each to do a half-a$$ed job wiping the floor the day before and it was still twice as good as I’d done in a year.

Here’s how it went down: I’ve never wiped a kitchen floor without a child crossing it and careening onto their back. Usually moments after I’ve warned them to stay off it. Usually as I’m speaking the warning, they are nodding their head in agreement and continuing their pursuit of neck injury at full speed.

So I thought, not only can they fall on it this time, they can CLEAN it. 

I broke it into baby steps:

Move the Chairs. Simple enough: move the dining table chairs off the linoleum and onto the living room carpet. Do not, I repeat, do not take the time and precision needed to construct a fort built to withstand the Oregon Trail while I stand here and wait for you to complete this mission.

*While they build the fort with the chairs, go ahead and change the bed sheets. They’ll be pulling the comforters off anyway due to the sturdy, truss-free construction offered by a queen size.

Pick up the Shoes at the front door. This means put them on the shoe rack. Left and right, side by side, a pattern pretty much like what you’re walking on.

*While they are searching for a bouncy ball they found in Dad’s shoe and ricocheted to the top of the cupboards, go ahead and put the shoes on the rack.

Pick up the cat dishes. This will alert the cats to the possibility of a feeding. A race will unfold, involving one very unwieldy calico and a cat that is such a flat, bottomless gray that she always has the same expression on her face. She will look pissed whether the kids feed her or not.

*While they carry the cats and the food bowls into their fort, add vacuuming to your to-do list.

Sweep. At least once in your parenting career, you’ll make the mistake of asking your children to sweep while they are still shorter than the broom. There’s a 100 percent chance that they will hit something with the handle while arguing with you that they know what they are doing.

*While you are re-magnetizing everything to the front of the fridge, you’ll see a well-defined line of sand left where they tried to mount the front of the dustpan. When you cross to inspect it, your socks will gather even more sand. The floor will feel (and be) dirtier than when you started.

Mop. Just kidding. Of course they can’t mop. They are spilling the bucket of water in the fort as we speak.

Now, you want to know about the inset picture? That’s me, drying the floor after mopping it myself in a bid to keep the children from killing themselves on it when they came roaring out of the fort. This is the closest to hand washing as I get.