[831] in Humor
HUMOR: Cleaning
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Sun Apr 16 21:42:38 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 21:40:21 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 1995 23:30:53 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
...
Sender: mwm@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
COMING CLEAN: MEN MISS THE FINE POINTS
My wife picked up the laundry basket that she had just emptied moments
before and handled my undergarment like it was road kill. "I guess this
is so the basket doesn't get lonely overnight?" she cracked, more than
a little annoyed at my propensity to fill the basket and my aversion to
emptying it.
OK, she was more than annoyed. As the understated police officer
might say after the domestic murder-suicide: "The couple was not getting
along." When will men learn that the great war will not be fought on
racial, religious or moral grounds? It will be waged in the laundry rooms
of America, and the weapons will be vacuum cleaners, mops, and the
occasional spray cleaner. And men will be at a clear disadvantage since
we will have little clue how to use them.
What separates men from women is not anatomy, not possession of the
remote control and not shopping philosophy (they subscribe to early and
often, we think buying fishing lures is shopping). It's household
cleaning habits.
Men clean on high holy days, the Final Four weekend and occasionally
if a date temporarily loses her mind and agrees to come over for dinner.
Women clean while they shop. They clean while they cook. They clean when
the UPS man is expected -- the Wall Street Journal did deem them the
sexiest men alive. They clean when the furniture delivery guys show up.
They clean before the cleaning people show up, for Pete's sake.
And if company is coming, Lord help anyone who is in the house and
not blow-torching the dust balls as they escape from under the furniture.
Despite the narrowing of the gender gap on who can do what, there are some
things mothers never taught their sons, like cleaning. It's no accident
that the apartments of college guys look like shantytowns.
Of course, men don't understand this basic difference between the
sexes until it's too late (i.e., you're married). When you return home
from your honeymoon, you throw the suitcase in the corner of the bedroom,
where it belongs, until the next trip. A minute later you hear the
suitcase being opened and cleaned out. Funny, that used to take months.
Then one Saturday your wife asks you to clean the kitchen after lunch.
You smile and agree blissfully. You put the milk away, the bread on top
of the refrigerator and the dishes next to the sink. Then you cup your
hand and sweep maybe 50 percent of the crumbs into your other hand, losing
half the load onto the chair. More land on the floor when you toss the
crumbs in the general direction of the sink. Done.
An hour later, your wife is, unbelieveably, using water and a cloth
to get the mayo off the table.
"What are you doing?" you ask casually.
"This doesn't look familiar, huh?" she shrugs.
Things were different B.M. (Before Marriage). A big cleanup then
entailed moving countertop appliances instead of swirling a rag aroung
the blender and toaster. The only two times my wife, then my girlfriend,
visited my apartment, she cleaned it. What started as an offer of
assistance in the kitchen after dinner ended in a Mr. Clean attack on
anything not moving. And one blighted zone led to another. Before I
could maneuver her back to the couch, she was knee deep in buckets, mops,
and a high-powered hose.
"When was the last time you cleaned this place?" she cried.
"When did Reagan get in? I replied.
So, the next time you see a mainstream consumer magazine beg the question
"What Do Men Really Want?" you might suggest that it involves a mop and
bucket.
-- Frank Scandale, The Denver Post
