The other day one of my kids put her shoes on in the house. Voluntarily. The crud on the kitchen floor was hurting her feet, she said.

        Strike one.

        Soon after, my husband lost a sandal in the kitchen, when it became permanently adhered to an old juice spill. He declined to comment — wise man — and instead washed the entire floor, almost voluntarily.

        Strike two.

        I'm waiting for the dog to start in next, delivering the third strike with a complaint about being forced to eat the kids' droppings from such a grimy surface.

        In the game of housekeeping, it seems, I'm often 0-for-3 at bat. Even more often, I'm still sitting on the bench when the game is over.

        In the game of guilt over my dirty house, however, I'm knocking 'em over the fence.

        Blame it on my Catholic upbringing, blame it on modern media, blame it on a competitive nature. Whatever the psychological underpinnings, I am racked with guilt by my dirty house.

        The kitchen floor, while the biggest of guilt producers, isn't my only source of shame. All the floors mock me, forever being in need of a wet mop, dry mop or vacuum.

        When they lay off, the laundry joins in, taunting, “Wash me, fold me, put me away.' The turtlenecks and sweat pants in the kids' drawers have been especially cruel of late, chiding me for failing to deliver shorts and tank tops as the temperatures pushed past 80.

        When the clothes let up, the furniture lays it on thick — as thick as the layers of dust and fingerprints on any and all flat surfaces.

        All day, all night, the house and its contents wag their fingers at me, scolding me for neglect and abuse.

        The incriminations don't stop there, of course.

        The yard produces plenty of angst, with nary a blade of grass cut or a single weed pulled this far into spring. (OK, so cutting the grass is on my husband's list. I can still feel bad about a shaggy lawn, can't I?)

        The dog piles on the guilt, too, forever turning those sad basset hound eyes upward in hopes that today may be the day I decide to walk him. (Also not on my list; still doesn't matter.)

        I am deluged with guilt when I eat a donut in the morning, a snack before bed or the last few (dozen) chocolate eggs from the kids' Easter baskets.

        I feel guilty that I'm behind on grading papers, paying bills, writing letters, reading books and putting photos, circa 1984, in albums.

        I feel guilty that I don't call my parents enough. I feel guilty that I don't call my friends enough. I feel guilty when I do call, thinking I should probably be doing something more pressing than chatting on the phone.

        And I take the biggest guilt trips of all over my family. They know this. They use this.

        “Mom, is this an Erica day?” the youngest whines on days I work, making me feel like Mommy Dearest for leaving the house without her.

        “There's nothing good to eat,” the middle one laments, pointing out my inadequacies for running out of Go-Gurt.

        “Mom, will you bring Bing when you pick us up?” the oldest asks, delivering a double dose of guilt for being both unavailable to pick up the car pool and unwilling to bring the poor neglected pup along.

        After an afternoon of those queries, my husband's innocent “What's for dinner?” is enough to send me to the therapist's couch.

        I am evolved enough to know I have little cause for guilt. I am aware enough to know I can choose to embrace or reject guilt. But I'm not clever enough to know how to keep it repressed.

        Especially after a day at home in a dirty house.

        I can be zipping along, guilt-free, and then, boom!, I notice the grease on the stove or the fuzz on the mini-blinds or the ring around the ring around the tub and I'm gorging on guilt again.

        Once I reach that state, there are only two possible recriminations: 1. Clean the house, an option I pick only when company is due; 2. Wear shoes in the kitchen.

        I choose shoes.

        Contact Patricia Gallagher Newberry by e-mail: newgal@one.net.

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