Clean Sweep...

The myth is that men are hopeless at cleaning. As with all myths there is a foundation of truth in the story, though not the one most commonly attributed to the legend - that we can't or won't do it.

That is not the matter at all. The truth rather is that men clean too well for their or anyone else's good. Let this tale illuminate my meaning:

Having spent most of Friday night in prayerful and penitential vigil - i.e. howling at the television screen as one watched the England cricket team cast away their wickets and the Ashes with seemingly glad abandon - I awoke late [not far short of mid-day] to be greeted by H in stern mood.

Her take on the whole thing was that one had simply sought avoidance of Saturday chores, a failed quest in that one was being asked [aka 'ordered'] to clean the kitchen properly prior to next week's feast of frenzied cooking. Being too broken in spirit from what one had witnessed to protest that she would, as ever, regret this imposition I merely meekly assented and set to work.

The result of course is entirely as should have been predicted: the kitchen is now an exclusion zone, no person permitted therein, whilst I seek out and destroy every speck and spot of dust, dirt, grease or other alien life form. Eight hours of toil and one had managed three cupboard plus all the glasses therein, two drawers and one of the major surfaces. By estimation this is but one third of the task, two days more required for completing the whole mission.

This is not obsession or mania. It is rather rational thoroughness. Cleaning is a purely binary proposition: something is either clean or not-clean and compromise is not an option.

H should have had the sense to anticipate from experience how the whole thing would pan out and, if some sentence for over-sleeping were required, assigned me to the ironing where I could happily have pressed on with no hindrance to the rest of humanity in the back bedroom until every last scrap of cloth were neatly folded and piled.

Worse from the 'humanity' angle, having put my back out reaching for the most inaccessible of ceiling flecks of dust I am now needing to adjourn further progress on the Herculean endeavour until Tuesday at the earliest, resulting in everyone having to eat take-aways for the duration.

Men do not clean because we are not good enough. We do not clean because we wish in charity to spare others from our goodness.