Why do we work so hard to impress the Lord of the Flies?

I’m glad I’m not a woman. Does that sound sexist? Because that’s not my intent here. I’m glad I’m not a woman because it seems like too much work.

I base this on observations I’ve made of The Lovely Mrs. Taylor. She’s working all the time. From my vantage point in the aptly-named La-Z-Boy, it doesn’t look like a great deal of fun.

Mrs. T works 40 hours a week at a “real” job, doing accounting stuff. This is a good thing, since it’s the only chance she has to relax. The rest of the time she’s slogging away around here like a character from an Alex Haley novel, a character who’s not going to be able to relax until Lincoln wins the Civil War.

She works hard. She gardens. She cleans. She changes the sheets, does most of the cooking, dusts, attends to the cats’ litter box. A lot of stuff. And when she’s done with that, she tries to find time to create art, which is what she really wants to be doing instead of other peoples’ payroll forms.

Sometimes it makes her a little crabby. That’s not a complaint on my part, by the way. If I lived her life, I’d have killed someone by now; probably several someones.

The hardest part, though, is when we have company. Doesn’t matter who. Could be the Pope, the president, or some guy selling life insurance. Visitors, in Mrs. T’s mind, deserve our best. Put another way: she wants to present an entirely fictional version of our lives, one in which our bathroom floor is more sterile than an open heart operating theater.

This is on my mind because last weekend my daughter surprised us with a visit.

This is my daughter. I love her, but the entire time she lived under my roof I felt like a hog farmer. The girl was a pig. She (and all her friends) covered her bedroom walls with Sharpie-inspired “poetry.” Her idea of organizing laundry consisted of kicking like-colored clumps of clothing into mouldering piles. Storing a half-eaten ham sandwich beneath her bed was not unheard of.

Living with my daughter was much like living with a really smart chimpanzee. But not an especially tidy chimpanzee.

I would say she never threw her feces, but there was one time when she was only three or so… But that’s a story for another time.

My point is, she was not exactly Martha Stewart. Unless you want to compare her with my sons. Jordan and James, as teens, made chimpanzees look like Emily Post. (I know that’s a dated metaphor, but hang with me here.) When one of the boys got sick, I didn’t know whether to call a doctor or a vet. They were one pig head short of “The Lord of the Flies” and I promise that’s my last literary reference for this column.

My children were savages. And that’s fine. I was a single, male, parent. Savages were pretty much the best I could hope for and they all turned out to be fine, upstanding adults any parent would be proud of, so there.

Their own homes are relatively tidy. Looking at them now, you’d never guess there was a time they could have passed for extras in “The Island of Doctor Moreau” and apparently I had one literary reference waiting in the wings after all.

So why does Mrs. Taylor act as if they’re visiting royalty whenever they stop by? For the life of me, I do not know.

Aubreii called around noon last Sunday. She was in town visiting one of my ex-wives (the one that is her mother) and wanted to stop by on her way back to Detroit.

“Sure,” I said.

And then I made the mistake of telling Mrs. T about the visit. For the next three hours, my wife performed what she calls “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” cleaning every nook, cranny, and cranny-nook in the house. All this for a girl who once smeared feces (chimp-like) from her diaper (and her brother’s) on a bedroom wall.

By the time Aubreii arrived with my grandmonsters, Rosie, Ari and Juniper, Mrs. T was beat. The house was spotless, but so? We’re still talking feces smearers here, folks. A spotless presentation was not a requirement, in my mind.

I appreciated Mrs. T’s hard work, but I doubt anyone else noticed. It’s the same story when Mrs. Taylor’s kids and grandkids show up. It’s not fair that the woman who works so hard already must work even harder to accommodate company (by which I mean our aforementioned chimp-like progeny).

Fortunately, Mrs. T recently read an article about exactly this thing; working too hard to impress. I don’t know if it totally cured her, but I’m hopeful. Next time a kid visits, we’ll know for sure.

Mrs. T was raised thinking she had to compete with June Cleaver. But the Beav’s mother never had to work 40 hours a week doing other peoples’ books. I’m really hoping she’ll be able to relax a little next time one of our chimps want to stop by for barbecue.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

‘Man Hints from Mike’ is going to make me rich and famous, just wait and see

Remember that “Hints from Heloise” column that used to appear in every other paper in America? If you’re a guy, chances are you just said, “No.”

“Hints from Heloise” was – or maybe still is, I don’t know – a column straight out of the 1950s, when wives stayed home and toiled in the domestic vineyard while their husbands left each morning for the office, plant or factory. It was – or is (I guess I should check … yup, still appearing in papers; thank you Google) – a column dedicated to sharing house cleaning tips with the remaining few stay-at-home moms and wives across America.

I was a single parent during much of the time my kids were growing up. As such, I felt it was OK for me to read Heloise. After all, I too had grass stains to get out of my son’s blue jeans, and was just as responsible as any mom for providing the weekly snack for my daughter’s T-ball team.

On more than one occasion, Heloise was a life saver. But ultimately, her column is geared toward women.

And that’s given me an idea. As a newly-singled guy, I’ve been re-learning the ins and outs of maintaining a reasonably clean home. The kids are long gone, but I’m a big enough slob to make up for that. Still, my home is clean.

Why? Because – one chore at a time – I’m coming up with inventive “man tricks” for keeping the place off the Health Department’s most wanted list. I’m thinking I could share those tips here and maybe get as rich and famous as Heloise in the process.

Me getting rich and famous would make three out of four of my ex-wives completely nuts, so I have more motivation than I really need.

At any rate, let me try a few of ‘em out on you here. Tell me what you think.

LAUNDRY: Women (including Heloise) insist on separating whites from darks. This is not necessary. Instead, just dump all the laundry into one big machine, add the detergent, then add some salt; regular table salt works just fine. I don’t know why, but the colors don’t bleed over into the whites. OK, maybe they still bleed a little, but not enough to bother most guys.

But do try to avoid mixing red sweaters and white jockey shorts, unless you want guys wondering about your pink underwear when you go to the gym.

VACCUMING: For the first few weeks after my most recent wife exited, I had no vacuum cleaner; she took it with her, along with the dog, cat and good dishes. Fortunately, she left the leaf blower.

An electric one works best, unless you don’t mind your whole house smelling like leaf blower exhaust. Start by opening the front door, then take the leaf blower to the opposite end of the house, switch it on, and watch the dust fly!

DUSTING: OK, after you’ve vacuumed with the leaf blower there’s bound to be dust settling on pretty much every flat surface in your home. No problem; just take the leaf blower to the back of the house again and repeat the process, this time blowing off the tops of tables, counters and so on.

It’s a good idea to toss any loose knick knacks and bric-a-brac into a box or something before you begin, depending on the power of your leaf blower. But hey, you’re a guy. You shouldn’t have knick knacks or bric-a-brac (whatever that is) sitting around your house anyway.

Any large objects (like empty beer cans) accidentally blown into the front yard will likely be collected by neighbor kids. That’s like getting free trash pickup! Another bonus!

Using my “man tips” a single guy can have his house clean and ready for Saturday “date night” in less than an hour.

And that’s my first “Man Hints from Mike” column, sure to be picked up for syndication any day now. I can’t wait until I’m rich and famous. I’ll be able to hire someone to clean this dump.

Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Cleaning the office—a lesson in urban archaeology

After holding out for more than 10 years, I finally gave in last weekend and let The Lovely Mrs. Taylor clean my home-office.

Now, before you feminists get all excited, let me explain. I didn’t ask her to clean it. I didn’t want her to clean it. I was perfectly happy with the sty-like conditions of my personal workspace.

But Mrs. T is the Felix to my Oscar, a fussy neatnik forced by cruel fate to share living space with an incontrovertible slob—me. My messy office has been making her koo-koo since about a week after we moved in together.

The rest of the house is Mrs. T’s domain—tidy, uncluttered, nicely decorated, smelling faintly of expensive potpourri and anti-bacterial cleaners. My office, conversely, resembles the deserted den of a grizzly bear.

Mrs. Taylor has suggested on more than one occasion that I send photos of the room to Washington along with an application for federal disaster relief funds. She may be kidding—I can never tell.

At any rate, I’ve always been reluctant to let her in there. I wasn’t hiding any secret papers, girlie magazines or large caches of illicitly gained money, it’s just that the room was full of stuff. Mostly stuff I would never use again, but couldn’t bear to throw out.

My dolls, for instance. Not the frilly antique ceramic dolls gay guys collect (at least they do on TV—none of the gay guys I know collect ‘em), but “action figure” dolls. Somehow, I wound up with 12-inch plastic figures of Dr. Evil, Bob & Doug McKenzie, and the cast of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I don’t remember buying them, or receiving them as gifts, but they’ve been taking up space in my office for years.

Likewise, I have computer equipment dating back to the Reagan administration. I am virtually sure I will never again power up my Commodore 64 or even my ancient all-in-one black-and-white Mac Plus, but toss out something I paid over a grand for? I don’t think so.

Then there are the boxes filled with cards and letters I’ve received over the past 30 years. I’ll never look at any of them again, but they’re still important to me. Too important to throw out, at least. Plus, you never know, there might be something important in one of those boxes, something I’ll need to reference again … someday.

Finally, there’s my art collection, most of it created by the kids while in elementary school. Paintings created with glue and macaroni, drawings of turkeys made by tracing a six-year-old’s hand on butcher’s paper, “abstract” portraits in primary colors … tossing any of those would break my heart.

Fortunately, Mrs. T doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about my doll collection, antediluvian computer systems or elementary school art galleries. When she cleans, she’s a ruthless, unsentimental disposal and recycling machine. What can’t be used is outta there, period!

So, last weekend, while I was out of town on my weekend job (astronaut), Mrs. Taylor cleaned my office.

Turns out there was a desk in there. And a file cabinet.

Who knew?

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or information about 12-step programs for pack rats, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.