Prologue - Part 2

Following dinner Colin and myself went on a cleaning spree, since Travis wasn’t home to mess things up or complain we were making too much noise and he couldn’t hear the TV over the vacuum. The pair of us tackled the dirt and dust of our household as efficiently as we could, with Colin attempting to be manly with the mop and vacuum as he tried to clean the floors, while I was given the feather duster and was cleaning ever shelf, table or mantelpiece I could find.

“So it’s Simon’s birthday this weekend? Have you got him a present yet?” Colin asked as we cleaned.

“I was planning to, but I’m not a talented present-chooser, so I was hoping that someone such as yourself would just buy something and then I’d give you money for it. His party is just down the road isn’t it?”

“How did I know you would try to foist present duty on to me? I’m so going to lie to you and make you pay more!”

“That’s fine, I can afford to, unlike some people in this house.”

“Ouch. But it’s true...daddy can pay for you to get a lot of things.” Colin said, quickly moving to avoid a swing of a feather duster aimed for his head. “And yes, the party is at the Commercial. Travis is working as per usual so guess who is on the door list and getting free drinks?”

“I’m not sure but I’m guessing a boy who is about to have dust in his hair?” I swung again with the feather duster, this time with a bit more success. Colin’s hair turned a shade greyer.

“Do you mind? I’m supposed to be seeing Xander later on! I don’t want him thinking I’m as old as you are!”

This comment served only to have the duster aimed at him one more time. Colin, thinking quickly, blocked the duster with the vacuum. What ensued was a miniature swordfight with cleaning implements, which only served to redistribute the dust and dirt back around the room.
This was especially the case when Colin got overzealous with his vacuum usage, and lifted the entire unit off the ground, opening it up and spraying dust and dirt all over the lounge.

This is the problem when you buy fancy, overpriced cleaning devices...they were never intended to be used for sword-fighting. If only manufacturers were more considerate.

Colin and I just stopped and stared as a cloud of dust covered not only us – ruining my pyjamas, but also half of our lounge suite. Travis’ favourite chair copped most of the grime, and Colin no longer looked like an old man, instead some sort of crazy dust bunny. We then looked at each other, and the state of one another’s clothes, and burst out laughing.

After what seemed like an hour of laughing, in which we both ended up sitting down – Colin in Travis’ now dirty armchair and myself on the coffee table, which was probably cleaner at the start of the night than it was at this point.

“By the way...I shotgun the shower and not cleaning this up! I have a date to attend to!” Colin said.

Before I could protest this...he had run out of the room. I would follow but he was aiming for the shower, which would mean nudity. I think seeing a housemate nude is something that doesn’t sit very high on my to do list, so I decided the safer option was attempting to salvage my lounge room from the mess we had created. At least my TV had remained safe from the dust attack...