The Origins Of Spring-Cleaning, Or Along Came Eve (standard:Inspirational stories, 923 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: May 22 2006	Views/Reads: 4521/2189	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I always know when April makes its yearly debut without consulting the calendar because my wife usually says, “Let’s clean out the garage today.” Trust me on this one, it is no April fool’s joke, but someone gets fooled. And believe me, I’m just not anybo

I always know when April makes its yearly debut without consulting the
calendar because my wife usually says, “Let's clean out the garage 
today.” Trust me on this one, it is no April fool's joke, but someone 
gets fooled. And believe me, I'm just not anybody's fool. I'm my wife's 
fool. 

Somehow, her “let's” has a funny singular ring to it and we had, if I
remember correctly, a double ring wedding ceremony. Hers is on her left 
ring finger while mine somehow ended up in my nose. 

For some reason spring brings to women, wives in particular, an
uncontrollable urge to clean something. It doesn't matter what that 
something is, it has to be cleaned. Moreover, it does not matter how 
clean or dirty that something is or when it was last cleaned, it must 
be cleaned again. 

This represents a basic philosophical difference between men and women.
In the beginning, man was perfectly at home with dirt, then along came 
Eve and introduced spring-cleaning. 

We have no idea how long it was between Adam and the time Eve came onto
the scene, but it was long enough to get the entire Garden of Eden 
dirty, necessitating a thorough cleaning. 

Thus began the yearly ritual known as spring-cleaning. This tradition
has been handed down from mother to daughter since the beginning of 
time. As far as I can ascertain, no father on record has handed down to 
his son any way of putting a stop to this nonsense. And don't think I'm 
not just a little upset about that. 

I think our forefathers could have found a fifth father to help come up
with a workable plan to get rid of this yearly onus. 

But, it is spring and the time-honored ritual has come to our domestic
den. Spring is in the air and spring-cleaning is on the agenda. I, on 
the other hand, had other plans, which did not include soap and water. 
So much for my plans. A husband's plan is always subject to his wife's 
rescheduling. 

Every year I asked the same question. How in the world does spring get
so dirty? And, more important, why do I have to clean it? I didn't mess 
it up. 

I believe Mother Nature ought to clean her own spring and not push this
responsibility onto husbands like me who have better things to do with 
their time. 

One year I got confused and cleaned my spring in the fall, which screwed
up my whole winter wondering what I would do when spring actually 
arrived and it was already cleaned. 

Spring-cleaning would not be so bad if I could use my definition of
clean rather than my wife's. One man's clean is his wife's “when are 
you going to clean that?” 

At the least, it would be helpful if spring-cleaning only came on leap
year, which would give me an opportunity to hop out of the way before 
my good wife could spring into action. 

In our house, the annual spring cleaning focuses on the garage. When my
wife gets it into her head to clean the garage, I get it into my head 
to get clean out of her way. In the scheme of things, how important is 
a clean garage anyway? It's not as if Martha Stewart is going to make a 
surprise visit. 

As a veteran husband (with the scars to prove it), I have discovered one
thing in my house. Behold, a greater than Martha Stewart lives at my 
lodgings. 

My philosophy is simply, a dirty garage is a happy garage. It just
doesn't make my wife happy and when she's not happy neither am I — so I 
am willing to live with an unhappy garage. These are the compromises 
enabling husbands to survive generation after generation. At least, 
enabling this husband to survive spring-cleaning one more year. 



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