How to clean up in poker and bathrooms
Know what I hate? Boat parades. I understand the allure, the fun-house reflections off the water. Pink palm trees. Blue reindeer. But boat parades don’t remind me of Christmas. What boat parades remind me of is Victoria’s Secret ads. Or Republican National Conventions, when they used to be down in Miami Beach.
You know what we need more of? Well, everything, but you know the one holiday activity that should increase? Poker games. There’s something about all that green felt. Reminds me of those funny tuxedos elves wear.
And at a poker game, there is a small chance someone will bring me a beer. At my own house, there is a 100% chance of nobody ever bringing me a beer.
Green felt, red poker chips. Smoky Scotch. Cigars. That’s Christmas. Think I saw a picture once by Currier & Ives.
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New law: You can’t toss your tree on Dec. 26. A tree on the curb on Dec. 26 is a crime against Christmas. It’s premature. It’s spiking the ball on the 3-yard-line. Or burying someone before they’re cold.
Christmas is like waking up to find yourself in a Robert Frost poem. There should be no rush to leave.
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Does your wife ever clean up for the maid? I can top that. My wife cleans up for third-grade birthday parties.
In another sign of the ridiculousness of modern life, that’s what we did the other day. My wife Posh starts on the living room, then asks me to do the bathroom. I wait for the smile, thinking she is joking. Two hours pass. Nothing.
What women don’t understand about male hygiene is something called the Frat House Factor. See, guys know that for four years — in the dorm, in the frat house, in the campus apartment — they lived in a place where no one ever really cleaned.
These were also the happiest times of a young man’s life. So what happens is, the boy leaves college equating happiness with bad hygiene.
Now, a woman doesn’t really understand the Frat House Factor. All her life, she has led a rather hygienic life. Naturally, these two people — the man and the woman — will one day make a home together. This is called cohabitation. It is also how a lot of murders happen.
Me, I had never cleaned a bathroom till the other day, so I am going to offer some tips for other men on how to clean the bathroom, should they ever find themselves in that lucky situation.
The first thing you’ll want to do is rest a little, for you’re going to find yourself on your feet for a good 10 to 20 minutes, cleaning the bathroom. I recommend ESPN, or some other current events channel. The NFL Network is good too.
Next, you’re going to want to open a beer. Everything is better after one beer, including cleaning a bathroom. I might suggest a domestic, because that’s exactly what you’ve just become.
Note that there will be hair everywhere, especially if this is a bathroom used by women, who are constantly shedding, even in winter. It’s a shock to me, now having cleaned up after one, that they are not entirely hairless.
What you’ll soon find is that a bathroom is nothing more than a woman’s cage, hair everywhere. Much of it will be in the drain, which is why you have what they call a plunger (though they also make nice party hats).
When you are done ridding the bathroom of hair, it is time to move on to the “organic material no one can identify,” otherwise known as org-mat.
For this, you might want to crack open another beer.
There is that classic scene in “Caddyshack” in which Bill Murray cleans his apartment with a leaf blower. For the org-mat, I would recommend that.
Or, if you have one of those big dogs that real men have, you can just send him into the bathroom to lick everything, as big dogs are inclined to do. If I remember correctly, that’s mostly how we cleaned up in college, the happiest years of our lives.
As a final touch, sprinkle lots of Clorox around the toilet and tub, which freshens everything and hides the beer smell. Because by now, you’re probably on to your second six-pack.
That’s pretty much how you go about cleaning a bathroom, the male way. When you are done, it is important to make a big production of things.
“Ladies and gentleman, I give you now ... hey, is that the Hope Diamond? Is that a Fabergé egg? No, it’s a perfectly sparking bathroom!”
Say it in stentorian tones, as if introducing the next president, or the winner of the office potluck.
Some men give jewelry for Christmas. Others give their wives spotless bathrooms.
To give them both, I think, would just be overdoing it.
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