Apr. 16, 2004 - 5:38 a.m.

Panic Button

I really, really meant to write entries yesterday and the day before.

Know why I didn't?

I couldn't find my computer.

Know why I couldn't find my computer?

NewWifey(tm) left for her sister's place last Sunday. By Tuesday it looked like the Exxon Valdiz had cracked up in here. I couldn't rind the computer room, let alone the computer.

Let me tell you, that "Queer Eye" show is in no danger of running out of material. They could tape a brand new episode every hour of every day from yesterday until the Earth plunges into the Sun 12.8 billion years from now, and never makeover the same guy twice. That's because ALL straight men are Oscar Madison.

Seriously, what's with us guys? Why do we succumb to the pull of entropy whenever we're left to our own devices for longer than it takes to lose the toothpaste cap? I know of no single heterosexual male who does not, deep down, yearn to wallow again in the Primordial Soup of his microbial ancestors, and actively pursues that dream when away from the grasping hooks of his Woman.

Ladies, don't even start. No, your Man has NOT somehow managed to be spared that evolutionary fate. As sure as OJ is guilty, your "obsessively neat husband" will be scampering pantless in that foetid cesspool with the rest of us dogs 10 minutes after dropping you off at the airport.

Let me tell you a story.

Once or twice a month I meet NewWifey(tm) and a few of her coworkers for lunch. One of these women is constantly going on about how perfect her husband is. "My Roy is such a darling! Do you know, he folds his dirty socks and stacks them neatly in the clothes hamper? He wears surgical booties not only around the house but outside too, so he doesn't get the driveway dirty!"

Bullshit.

I happen to know "Darling Roy". In fact we roomed together in college for a while, and still go camping once or twice a year, just us two. At our last outing I asked him what the hell his wife was on about.

"Hey Roy - all I hear from your woman is how you iron the napkins at home, and never leave the toilet seat without a fresh coat of Turtle Wax every time you take a leak. When we were at U.P. even the cockroaches were scared to go into your room. You had the whole Howard Hughes thing going - long nails, Kleenx box shoes, and jars of urine everywhere. By our Junior year the entire floor was declared a Superfund Site. What the fuck, dude?"

Roy was picking his teeth with the sharp end of a muddy tent peg while simultaneously defecating into an empty Dinty Moore can. He only paused a moment before answering.

"Well, ya see...remember when you found all my amputee porn in the bathroom when we were Freshmen? To tell you the truth, that wasn't "just a phase". When I found out Dana had that missing digit on her left pinkie, I just had to have her. And now that we're married, she plays me like a Steinway. If I don't polish the phone cord for godsake, she doesn't let me suck her stump. So...I polish the phone cord. And the wall outlets. And iron the curtains. And..."

There you have it in a nutshell: our mania to satisfy whatever disgusting desire simmers just below the beltline forces us to wear unnatural masks. Your man is no different, trust me. If it weren't for women, The Lord of the Flies would be a How-To manual.

So anyway, I was happily lying naked on a stack of pizza crusts and filthy socks this morning, watching The View, when the phone rang. I climbed out of the tub and answered it.

"Hi, Honey? Guess what - I'm coming home early from my sister's! I should be pulling up to DangerHouse by 6. Do me a favor; I forgot to set out the recylables before I left, and I don't want to attract flies. Could you set the bucket out on the curb before I get home? It isn't much, only a bottle or two, but it's important. Thanks!

*click*

!

I looked around the living room at islands of smoking garbage roiling around my knees on a layer of 10-30 deisel oil. It has its own tide cycle.

6 o'clock? Where am I gonna get a front loader and boxcar of Agent Orange on such short notice??

Anyway, I just stopped in long enough to post this before breaking out the shovel and full radiation suit. And some wandering nomad family who'd pitched a yurt in my kitchen needs to be evicted. As soon as I find their pack horses I'll help load blankets and bags of spices, then give them directions to Ulan Bataar. I feel bad, since I told them they could stay til the harvest.

With any luck (and a strategically set fire or two) the place will be clean enough by the time she gets home that she'll never suspect agents of the CDC had been here just hours before investigating the source of Avian Flu.

Well, gotta get cracking folks. Arbeit Macht Clean (und laid).

Later!

Mr. Clean