Clean Garbage

I've always been an admirer of women. No, it's not just because they have breasts. That would make me a sexist at best and a misogynist at worst. So my admiration is about way more than that. It's about way more than those soft, conical, perky protuberances that drive men wild. Way more. Way...um....

Where was I?

Oh, yeah.

It's not about breasts, and I am not a misogynist. I believe men and women are equal. In fact, I'm convinced that in many ways women are superior. Take the art of logic, for example. Women are logical in ways men can't possibly comprehend. I first learned this from my mother when I was just a young'n.

My mother worked full time midnights as a nurse, and of course in those days husbands did little to no housework, so my father was no help to her when she became ill. It was necessary, they decided, to hire a woman to help my mother with laundry, ironing and some general housecleaning.

The day arrived and I awoke to see my sickly mother furiously racing through the house cleaning everything in sight. The cleaning lady wasn't due for a couple of hours. "Mom," I said, "What are you doing? The cleaning lady's gonna be here soon."

"I don't want her to think we're not a clean family," she said.

Well, I couldn't wrap my head around that one. Neither could my father, apparently. The cleaning lady didn't last out the week.

My ex taught me an important logic lesson too. One day I noticed she washed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Sensing redundancy, I jumped all over that.

"Why are you washing dishes before you wash them?" I asked her.

"You've got to clean the crud off before you put them in the dishwasher," she said.

It took a while for my mind to form the rebuttal. "Why do they call it a dishwasher rather than a dish rinser, then?"

"Take out the garbage," she said.

Which brings me to the purpose of today's post.

I first got an inkling about female logic, at least as it related to garbage, from my oldest daughter. I'd been invited over to dinner at her very first apartment. After the meal I decided I'd be a nice guy and help her clean up the table. I grabbed the dirty napkins, opened the cupboard under the sink, located the trash container and tossed the napkins inside.

"Not in the clean garbage!" my daughter shrieked.

"Clean garbage?" I asked.

"Yes. I just put on a new trash bag. I want it to stay clean," she said.

"Oh. Then...then where do I put the garbage?"

"In the dirty garbage."

"Wait. Are you telling me you keep two garbages?

"Of course."

"What? You mean you keep one just for display?"

"Take the dirty garbage outside, Dad."

#

I've learned more about female garbage logic from my girlfriend, Hunny. Our first ever argument was about the garbage disposal. I had the water running, the disposal turned on and I was scraping leftover food from the dinner plates into the swirling water.

"What do you think you're doing?" she said.

"Um...cleaning off the dishes before I put them into the automatic dish rinser."

"No! Don't do that. The food will get caught in the disposal."

"Dear, it's called a garbage disposal. You're supposed to scrape food into it."

"No, no, no, no," she said, clearly frustrated with me. "Just put the dishes on the counter. I'll take care of them later."

Well, I never have to be told to not do something twice, so I set the plates down, popped a cold one and plopped myself in front of the TV where either the Lions or the Pistons--I don't remember which--were losing yet again. You see, I've learned that sometimes it's best we don't try to understand. Sometimes it's best to just go with the flow.

Much time has passed since that day, but in all the time I've known her, Hunny only used the disposal once. Even then all she was doing was cleaning the unit with baking soda and water, although why she needed to clean something she'd never used was beyond me.

Things got worse when we finally got into the real garbage issues. We'd had KFC for dinner and afterward I dumped all the bones into the bucket, popped on the lid and dumped it all into the trash.

"Don't do that," Hunny said. "It'll stink."

"Not for a few days," I said. "And besides, it's supposed to stink. That's why they call it garbage."

"Not in this house," she said. She pulled the container from the garbage and put it in the refrigerator. "It won't stink in there."

Call me silly, but it didn't seem right to me that we should keep our garbage in the refrigerator. Refrigerators were meant to be a cold storage place for beer. I thought everybody knew that. But as time went by I noticed other strange things happening. For example I found a Glad Bag full of banana peels, an empty tuna fish can and three French fries, probably leftovers from some grandspawn's Happy Meal.

I picked up the bag. "Why?" I cried plaintively, thrusting the bag accusingly toward her.

"Why?"

"Put the garbage back in the refrigerator where it belongs," she said.

It was time for me to give up the ghost. So now I've bought into the concepts myself. Women's logic has prevailed.

There's only one thing about female logic that troubles me at the moment--the fact that Hunny just cleaned the toilet. What that means is that I'm not allowed to use it. She's already nixed my using either the kitchen sink or the bathtub. And, you know, a guy can only keep his legs crossed for so long. So, if you've been reading this, please think nice, dry thoughts, and whatever you do, don't let the faucet drip.