Fat question scares men

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It’s interesting how men and women have different versions of clean.

A guy could look at a room and think, "Yup, that looks good to me."

A woman could look at the same room and wonder what kind of barbaric, hand-to-hand battle had occurred to make such a mess.

The difference is most noticeable when it comes to spring cleaning.

For a guy, spring cleaning means moving the couch when he vacuums.

For a woman it means dismantling the couch, vacuuming every square inch of it and reassembling it to better than original.

When it comes to cleaning, men and women just do things differently.

For example, a few years ago my wife tried a little experiment.

There was a pair of clean wool socks next to my side of the bed. My wife was determined to leave them until I put them away.

After a few weeks, she was astounded they were still there.

“Those socks have been there for weeks and you haven’t even noticed.”

To which I replied, “That’s where you are wrong. I did notice I just didn’t care. There’s a difference.”

I figured the socks weren’t hurting anyone, they were out of the way and if I needed them, I knew where they were.

Spring cleaning for a guy means going through his closet and throwing out a couple of shirts that are too torn to wear even under a sweater and digging out the several pairs of pants that have mysteriously shrunk over the winter.

For a woman, it means hauling every single item of clothing out of the closet, trying each item on, assessing their value and comparing current fashion styles with what they have to determine what goes and what stays.

The process can take days.

“Does this still look good on me?”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, I don’t think it does, I’m going to get rid of it.”

That’s what I meant to say actually, but I decided to say something else to see if you were on your game or not.
Helping in this area is not something for a man.

Ladies, for future reference, call a friend to come over if you want an opinion on clothes.

Unless it is lingerie, most guys are not too interested in what you dig out of the closet.

And please, do not ask the question every man dreads, “Does this make me look fat?”

Even prehistoric cave men knew the answer to this one.

When the little woman threw on the latest in Wooly Mammoth fashion and looked at hubby while asking the infamous question, even a walnut-brained Neanderthal new enough to grunt, “No dear,” lest he get a brontosaurus bone upside the head.
The lady of the house could weigh slightly less than a Volkswagen Beetle and the universal answer would still be ‘No.’

The most frightening area of spring cleaning is the kids' rooms.

Grown men have fled in terror as the missus’ eyes glass over with spring-cleaning fever and she seeks recruits to help with the task.

The woman will dig into the job with energy typically reserved for a piranha feeding frenzy.

Every toy car, gadget and plastic super hero has its own specific place.

I did not know this. To me, everything with wheels went in the car bin, super heroes went in another bin and whatever did not fall into those categories went in whatever bin still had room in it.

Again, for the cleaning-crazed woman of the house the job is an all day affair. For a guy it’s a two-hour task broken up by time spent playing with some of the cooler toys.

It is times like this I am thankful for weeds so I can get out of the house where all I have to worry about are bee stings and burning nettle.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.