By Tim Sanders

I am a man, and proud of it. Men are noble creatures, with courage, endless imagination, and brains capable of formulating unified field theories and pondering all the mysteries of the universe. We men do have our limitations, however, especially when it comes to housekeeping. Our finely-tuned, sensitive brains are not particularly wired for housekeeping. When we are faced with housecleaning situations, in fact, our brains often short circuit. When we see a carpet that needs vacuuming, or a pile of dirty dishes, or a basket of soiled clothes, our courage deserts us, our memory bank is deleted, our monitor goes blank and we suffer a system crash.

Many, many years ago, when Marilyn and I had been married but for a short time, we lived in a small duplex apartment in a northern suburb of Detroit. Marilyn and her sister Nancy decided to take their mother on a trip to Alabama to visit relatives, and Nancy’s husband Bill and I were left to fend for ourselves. We fended, sort of. Some nights we would hang out at Bill’s house across town, drink beer and watch TV. And some nights, just for a change of pace, we’d hang out at my apartment, drink beer and watch TV. We were wild adventurers, we were. At any rate, what we didn’t do a lot of was housecleaning. Our rule of thumb was that as long as there were a couple of relatively clean dishes in the house, it made no sense to wash the dirty ones. And likewise, if Marilyn and Nancy weren’t due back for a week, it made no sense to clean house early, since it would only get dirty again before they got home. We planned to wait until the evening before the girls returned to do any cleaning, so that everything would be all bright and sparkly when they arrived.

Well, this plan had a couple of flaws in it, which were Marilyn and Nancy, who couldn’t stick to a schedule. A couple of days before they were due home, Bill and I were sitting in the apartment, commiserating with ourselves about how rotten it was that Marilyn and Nancy were off having fun in warm, sunny Alabama while we were freezing our giblets off in Michigan, out of money, and left with only half a can of Budweiser and nothing to smoke but old cigarette butts. That was when the phone rang. It was Marilyn, whom I thought was still in Alabama, but who informed me that, no, they were back in Michigan, and had stopped at Bill and Nancy’s house. She said she was on her way home and would be there in a few minutes. Bill thought he’d better go home and face the music, housecleaning-wise, but I convinced him that since Nancy had already seen the devastation there, it wouldn’t cost him any more grief to stay and help me clean up the crime scene at my place. We worked furiously. There were piles of dirty dishes, including pots and pans and pizza boxes, all of which we stuffed into the oven and into several cupboards, which had plenty of room since the dishes that belonged there were all either sitting in the sink or scattered in various locations throughout the apartment. We shoved other things into closets, and emptied all of the ashtrays. Finally, when our manly brains told us the place didn’t look half bad, Bill left for home. Marilyn arrived shortly thereafter and was pleasantly surprised for almost half a second, until she found the dirty dishes in the oven and the cupboards, at which point she became very unreasonable. I don’t remember her exact words–my brain has mercifully blocked those memories–but they weren’t complimentary.

Occasionally I’ve thought about the incident, and told myself, ruefully, that I could have handled the situation better. I must have been the dumbest person, male or female, on the planet.

But finally, after nearly 40 years nurturing the firm belief that I was the world’s biggest boob when it came to housecleaning, an ABC News article by Don Germaise appeared on May 28 and put my mind at ease. There are bigger boobs out there committing housecleaning, and you can take that however you like.

According to Germaise, a Tampa, Florida man was faced with the unpleasant duty of cleaning his house before his wife returned from an out of town trip. Now this was no poor college student living in a tiny duplex, this was a fellow living in a "posh northwest county home." But regardless of his financial situation he was still a man. So being a man, this guy’s brain could not deal with housecleaning, and he was forced to hire a maid. And he didn’t just hire any old maid; he wanted the house cleaned properly, so he hired a NUDE maid from an online website. Hey, there was lots of valuable stuff in that posh Tampa home, and the very best way to ensure that some unscrupulous maid didn’t pocket half the household belongings was to stipulate, right up front, that she not wear any ... pockets. Or anything else, for that matter.

Unfortunately, when the gentleman’s wife returned home, she discovered that about $40,000 in jewelry was missing from her dresser. The husband may not have been able to tell authorities exactly what the maid was wearing when she arrived, but our guess would be that she must have at least carried a purse when she cleaned that bedroom.

Now granted, I might have hidden a few dirty dishes here and there in our apartment all those years ago, but when my clumsy subterfuge was discovered I at least had enough sense not to say, "Geez, it’s not my fault, honey. It was that darned nude maid." Had I done that, of course, I wouldn’t be here today discussing all of this nonsense.

If that guy in Tampa survives, and if his marriage survives, I’d be willing to bet it won’t be a month before his wife has surveillance cameras installed.

I’m sure she can find a naked electronics guy somewhere in the greater Tampa area.