When I die I want people to talk about me the way they are talking about Bob Saget. They probably won't for various reasons (I am not famous, I am not a comedian, I am really not that nice), but I would love it if they would.
Full House premiered in 1987 when I was almost 14 and the youngest freshman in my high school class. Not because I was smart but because my mother was and managed to sweet-talk the nuns into allowing me into Kindergarten as a 4 year old, before there were laws about those things. She had Jazzercise to do and Tabs to drink.
As a 13-almost-14-year-old I was too young to drive or date or work and spent my Friday nights with my girlfriends or with the toddlers I was babysitting. And while I was a typical teenager with an eye roll that could pass as a stroke and a sneer that could rival Elvis, I had a secret love of cleaning and organizing everything but my own room and, thus, a secret love for Bob Saget's Danny Tanner.
Here was a widowed father of three girls, living in a house packed with people, and that kitchen counter was spotless. The pantry was precise, the vacuum lines visible, the towels expertly folded in thirds... how was this guy still single?
My Friday nights changed as the years went on, as all Friday nights do for teenagers. I said goodbye to Danny Tanner and hello to football games and parties and boys much closer to my own age. I caught up with Danny on and off, mostly when I was sick or grounded in high school or cramming in college. We reconnected again when my own children watched the reboot of Fuller House and I was happy to see he was the same old Danny Tanner, sweet and funny and fighting the crime of grime. I will miss him. We are a product of our parts and I must give DT a shout out. He made it cool to be clean and for that I raise my furniture polish in a toast.
I WAS SMILING BECAUSE WOW - LOOK AT THE SHINE ON THAT WAGON WHEEL!
In honor of Bob Saget's Danny Tanner, I have included the "Good Housekeeping Cleaning Awards" winners here from the September 2021 issue that I have sitting right here on my organized desk. So yes, if you must know, I still subscribe to this magazine and Martha Stewart Living (the queen) and Better Homes & Gardens and have for a million years because as much as I adore Elle Decor and Architectural Digest and greedily page through them, earmarking and highlighting and ripping pages while sipping Sauvignon Blanc and listening to Stevie Wonder - aka 'working' - I still love a "Best Drugstore Lipstick!" article and I always google GH Seal of Approval before buying basically anything. Because honestly, if I had my perfect weekend I would float back and forth between the beach, the GH Institute, a cushy spa and The Container Store while wearing soft pajamas and drinking cold champagne and trying on expensive shoes and smelling a couple of fresh newborns. Am I alone in this? Travel+Leisure should call me.
My mother was the best at these small, simple acts that did and do feel like love. Even now when she visits I find the coffee ready to go for the morning or our beds turned down for the night. I walk into my own house at the end of a long day and find she has lit candles and tidied the kitchen and I could cry because I realize someone has stopped and thought about me. Or maybe she is just feeling guilty for carting me off to Kindergarten so early, especially after Brendon G. told me that nobody was going to be nice to me anymore and I cried at the drinking fountain. (He's nice to me now and we are still friends. If I had a Tab, I'd share.)
Teachers don't teach because they enjoy short people using their pant leg as a tissue. And I doubt chefs cook because they find raw chicken and dirty dishes thrilling. I can tell you that interior designers don't design because there is just nothing better than standing in a construction zone on an 18-degree day and I am guessing doctors don't practice medicine because they find scrubs flattering. We do things because we want to make others feel seen. We are humans and we are built for kindness. It's just science.
Danny Tanner cleaned because he loved his family. Bob Saget hosted America's Funniest Home Videos to make people laugh. He apparently told the most hideously disgusting, raunchy jokes to make a different type of audience laugh and somehow managed to do both without offending either group. True genius. And all along he lifted up new comics and kept in touch with old friends because he was thoughtful and good and funny and real and that matters more than anything. Even more than Windex... even, dare I say, a label for the Windex. Rest in clean and organized peace, Bob.
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