Hail Spring! Now where’s my nasal spray?

Spring-cleaning is the time when we start tripping over the piles we’ve accumulated all winter. Who started this? I’m sure it was the cave people. When the winter freeze was over and old bison parts would thaw, you knew it was time to clean because the cave would start to take on the aroma of an old locker room after a tri state wrestling match.

Since we have trouble throwing anything out, this is a big event that we prepare for starting in early February by repeating our daily mantra. ‘Is-thay ous-hay is ul-fay of ap-cray’ three times while clicking our heels and hoping it goes away. It doesn’t, and we resign ourselves to Spring-cleaning.

Hercules had an easier task cleaning out the Augean stables. He only had to divert a river. But let’s make more room because summer’s coming, and I’m sure we’ll need room for those summer things we’ll accumulate, and in the fall, think about throwing them out next spring. It’s one of those deadly cycles you can’t escape. You need room because clothes hangers clone themselves faster than your HMO says no to any procedure.

I’ve noticed a trend in our hall closet. Bags of bags are piling up and we haven’t filled enough of them with presents or garbage to keep ahead of the bag curve. There are plastic bags from the grocery and dept. stores and heavy duty decorated gift bags. They’ve become the wrapping du Jour for gifts. You can buy a set of gift bags and some tissue paper and not worry about wrapping a gift box and getting all the ends squared. For an anal retentive that’s a problem. I know one bald guy who spent an hour, a roll of tape and $16 worth of gift wrap and the package still looked like it was wrapped by a Kinder-garden class on sugar.

It all comes down to this: you’ll have to save some of those bags, clothes hangers and magazines because the unwritten law of the universe says you’ll need them the day after you throw them out. That’s why we won’t go against natural law. We’ll simply think about it once again next Spring!