Spring Cleaning: Postcard #89 from the Garden of Estrogen

Spring is just a few days away.  The grass is starting to re-emerge from under the blanket of white (unless you live in Boston, in which case that will happen sometime in June).  This is a perfect time for the first in what will be an occasional series known as The Housecleaning Chronicles.

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I have noticed among males - I occasionally observe members of my own gender as well - that we fall into one of three general types when it comes to cleanliness of living space.  The first type (and the least common) is the male neat-freak.  This male is more often than not a bachelor, and when one walks into his domicile it gives the impression of being in a furniture gallery.  The second type is the tornado – so distinguished not by what he does, but by the fact that his living quarters looks like the aftermath of said catastrophic event.  Most boys (and as I have discovered, young girls as well) have a natural tendency in this direction.  When I was growing up I definitely fell into the tornado category.  However, during the few years that I had my own apartment, I managed to migrate to the third, and in my opinion, most common male state – constant manageable clutter.  Characteristics include some subset of the following:

• Unsorted mail on the kitchen table
• An occasional unwashed dish or two in the sink
• A possible article of discarded clothing on the couch
• Athletic equipment in the entrance hall, golf putter and pitching wedge in the living room
• Tie and/or blazer on the desk chair
• Bed made sometimes, but not always
• A dresser drawer or two may be slightly open
• Bathroom passable - not great, but certainly not a hazmat area either
• Expired items in the refrigerator positioned toward the rear

In other words, in this state there is a persistent level of moderate disarray, but not so much that the place can’t receive a female or parental guest with a half an hour of warning (large closets being a definite plus here).  I am reminded of the scene from the movie Working Girl, where Harrison Ford carries a passed out Melanie Griffith up the stairs, wondering/hoping aloud if his cleaning lady has made a recent visit.  On the other hand, if the visitors are male friends or siblings, who cares?  Probably their places look the same or worse, and since everyone is glued to whatever game is on the tube, no one will notice anyway.

I have to confess: because my wife and I met while we were still in college, my apartment during the three years after graduation and prior to our marriage was never the true “bachelor pad”.  I was never looking to bring Melanie Griffith or anyone else back there other than the Queen-To-Be.  And as I began my career determined to pay off my college loans as quickly as possible, I spent the first year with my entire living room furniture consisting of a futon chair, a lamp, and a television resting on the box in which my microwave oven had been delivered.  This certainly limited the number of surfaces on which articles of clothing could aggregate.

So how is our behavior modified when we marry?  Note that I say “marry”, because while engaged and maintaining separate residences, the female can still turn a blind eye to the clutter with which she has become familiar.  After all, she can still go home to her own place.  Plus, there is something manly about a tie draped over the chair during courtship that instantly disappears with the phrase, “…as long as you both shall live.”

Assuming the man is not a neat freak, the merged domicile seems to result in less clutter than that of the bachelor.  Sure there might be some extra dishes in the sink or a few articles of clothing around the bedroom (more on some nights than others), but for the most part the house looks pretty good.  Of course, there is the adjustment period in which the man needs to learn to accept this higher order, while the woman simultaneously learns to let go a bit from the ideal.  It is also advisable to find a safe place for the man to store his sports equipment, particularly the ice hockey goalie pads. 

Point of clarification – the above use of the term “ideal” is intentional, because young women living together are not necessarily neat freaks either.  It’s just that they recognize that this is a state from which they are supposed to evolve (i.e., mature), while left to our own devices, men would persist in our natural state indefinitely.

* * * Beep, Beep, Beep, Screeeeeeech * * *

We interrupt this missive for an observation from The Queen of the Garden of Estrogen:

Your beloved Queen would like to take the opportunity to get a few things straight here:

• Did anyone else with two X chromosomes read the description of “constant manageable clutter” and wonder how much worse “tornado” could possibly be?
• The tie on the chair is manly only if you wore it to work that day.  If your office went casual in 1997, it doesn’t hold quite the same appeal.
• We do not let go of the ideal.  We continually strive to teach you men how to maintain a domicile.  Those nights when we throw our clothes on the bedroom floor are a brief incentive.
• The fact that children of both genders are messy, while only one gender grows out of it should tell you something.
• If there is any acceptable place for hockey equipment outside an ice rink, it is not within the four walls of any place inhabited by humans.
• And on the subject of sports, I was a basketball player – a very tall center, if you must know.  Hitting the basket was the entire objective.  And believe me, it wasn’t easy with the hoop 10 feet off the floor and two or three opponents draped over my shoulders.  By contrast, the clothes hamper is about 30 inches tall and is totally undefended.  How does the laundry consistently end up on the floor next to the hamper?
• We now return you to your regularly scheduled Postcard.

* * * Beep, Beep, Beep, Screeeeeeech * * *

Notwithstanding the interjected observations of the Queen, I would maintain that the new ‘cohabitative’ state is relatively easy to maintain, because after all, how much mess can two people who work full time really create anyway?

We will continue this series at some point in the future with “The Housecleaning Chronicles, Part II – The Babies Arrive”.  Household stability goes out the window.