Thoughts on cleaning.

Yesterday's cartoon was of course inspired by the house cleaning I was engaged in the last couple of days in preparation for dinner guests Saturday night. Everything got clean, or at least clean enough.

While scrubbing away I had a few thoughts on cleaning I thought I would share. The Internet is full of useful tips for cleaning, like those from Clean Queen Brianna K and others. They are very useful for information, strategy, and motivation. Well, forget them. This is Regular Guy thoughts on Regular Cleaning.

1) Budget more time than you think you'll need. Even if you don't use all the time -- say, you drank four Red Bulls and finished early, or gave up halfway through, or just cancelled the event that precipitated the cleaning in disgust -- then you can just sit down and relax. Why not? You already budgeted the time. (And if you did clean in a Red Bull caffeine-fueled frenzy, I'd double-check the quality of the work later.)

2) Eventually in life you reach a tipping point. That is when you go from not caring what your guests think, because they're also slobs like you, to finding yourself scrubbing around the base of the toilet. At the tipping point you may clean the bottom of the bathroom sink, because you realize that when one of your slob guests gets drunk and has to hurl, they'll be able to see the hair and stains on the bottom of the sink from that position, and will be judging you as they puke. Life and cleaning take us to some bizarre places.

3) A lot of people peg marriage as the time that you automatically change your attitudes about home hygiene. When you're young and single your idea of cleaning is buying new paper plates; suddenly you're married and Hot Dog Social is an excuse to bring out the wedding china. I find it doesn't work quite that smoothly. While marriage is a great civilizing force, it doesn't always hit couples like a lightning bolt, especially the male people involved. Anyway, there tends to be a de-civilizing force down the road that can turn Felix Ungers into Oscar Madisons: children. That's usually when the phrase "clean enough" enters the lexicon.

4) Bottom line: Clean enough is okay, but don't leave out the clean part. Gatherings of friends means that if you make the effort to clean, they should make the effort to overlook imperfection. No judging, silent or otherwise, just gratitude. When it comes to morals and taste, I'll judge all damn day, but as long as there's no vermin, I'm not judging your house. Besides, I'll be too busy judging your bookshelf.