The Short and Curlies

Oh, give me a home

Where the buffalo roam

And I'll show you a dirty house...

Like every other male human being I know, I hate cleaning things. Partly I'm just lazy, of course, but it goes deeper than that. I'm convinced that the little snippet of the second X chromosome that got snipped just happens to contain the genetic markings for an ability to see/care about dirt.

It's not that I live in a sty (although folks of the Martha Stewart persuasion would undoubtedly think so, and that's fine...they're entitled to live in their museums if it makes them happy). No, I'm just a clutterbug. I'm one who knows the answer to the famous question if a cluttered desk signifies a cluttered mind, what does an empty desk signify?

That said, every so often the clutter approaches some kind of critical mass and triggers a paroxysm of cleaning effort. As I get older, I'm finding my tolerance for stacks of paper and piles of books ever so subtly decreasing, and my willingness to do something about them increasing just as imperceptibly.

There are some things I don't mind doing at all. Dishes, for example. I'm one of the few people I know who doesn't have a dishwasher--I'm the dishwasher--and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I don't mind doing laundry, either, although putting it away grates on me, since it seems to take about as long to fold/hang clothes as it does to wash and dry them.

And I rarely bother to make my bed. Why would I? It's not like anybody's going to see it today. Not in real life, anyway. Ahem.

Bathrooms? Hate 'em. With a passion.

Oh, the actual cleaning of them isn't so bad, but for one thing. Okay, many things. Many curly, hairy things that stick to porcelain like glue, bending and twisting into taunting smirking hairy grins. You can't lift me, nah na-na-na-nah! No matter what cleaning apparatus I use--cloth, ScotchBrite, even a Swiffer Duster, which makes short work of anything not in a bathroom--all I ever succeed in doing is moving the little buggers around. I'm pretty sure they even enjoy the ride. Whee. After what seems like hours playing pubic-hair chess, I'm usually able to shove most of them into the toilet bowl proper, at which point I pause to catch my breath before beaming a satanic grin down as they wriggle together in an effort to form a life raft. Then I flush. Mercilessly. Our toilet flushes in three seconds flat, with a torrent that's absolutely un-survivable. My laugh sounds just like the evil chuckle of the flushing mechanism.

I start to get up, knees popping like my name is Orville Redenbacher--and then I catch sight of four or five little wigglies that I missed. I know when my back is turned, they'll commence to breeding. Hairs from that area of the world are renowned for it.

Screw every bathroom cleanser ever made. What we REALLY need is Pubes-B-Gone. I'd buy that. Wouldn't you?