Keeping up the appearances

When I got out of the shower today, I noticed that there was a bit of water behind my toilet. After looking around, I confirmed my fear that there was a leak in the seal of the toilet. I reported the leak to my apartment office, and expect maintenance to arrive tomorrow to fix things. Now, with less than a day to prepare for someone to be in my home, I went into instant panic mode, and started cleaning my bathroom. It's not like I live in any kind of squalid conditions, but I tend to be lazy in cleaning areas that are only seen by me. So I scrubbed, soaked, bleached, and rinsed every surface of my bathroom, in an effort to keep the maintenance guy (whom I will never see) from judging me based on cleanliness.

This frenzy of cleaning really got me thinking - why does it matter? Did I really need to clean so much? Would the lack of a clean bathroom keep the maintenance guy from fixing my toilet? Of course not. Still, this type of behavior is common practice. I remember when I was a kid, and our cleaning ladies would be coming, my mom made my brother and me clean our rooms in preparation. I always remember thinking it was a bit ridiculous that I was cleaning before the cleaning people came, yet I always (well, sometimes) did so. I'm pretty certain that the cleaning ladies would have cleaned regardless of my pre-cleaning.

So why do we do this? Why is it so important to keep up the appearances? What's wrong with letting people see who we truly are? Let me know what you think. I'm going to go clean the kitchen, so when the maintenance guy walks by on his way to the bathroom, he'll know I keep that spotless too. ;-)