Do Skin-Eating Spiders Make You Itch, Guys?

Spring Cleaning season will soon be here, guys. When you can't change channels due to the infra-red receptor being covered in dust and pizza sauce, it is that time of the year.

Naturally you personally will not be expected to clean up. A thorough scrutiny of the male genetic code has failed to find a cleaning up strand. The only strand with a remote resemblance is tuning up, and that is connected to the motorcycle strand. You will need the services of a professional cleaner-upper. Woman! Women have been cleaning up after men since Eve picked up Adam's discarded apple core and invented the word slob. Where to find a woman, though?

Or do you already have one? If you are living in sin and still can't change channels, I suggest you change partners instead. Check first of all that she is still with you. It's possible she left during the big game last month; remember that time you heard her screaming something or other? Shout for her, and if you don't get an answer, phone her on your cell-phone - if you can find the cell-phone, that is.

If she has left you, phone your big sister and invite her over for a visit; ask her to bring some cleaning cloths and a gallon of bleach. If you've tried that once too often, you will have no option but to call a housekeeping service. After hiring them, psych yourself up for the smell of Febreze, CLR and - cleanliness.

Instead, you could buy a pet. Not just any old pet; Elephants and Hippos are out as they will need extensive renovation which will mean having to find your tool chest behind the foot deep garbage. You want a sensible, dirt busting pet with a big slobbery tongue - say, a slavering Great Dane. Scatter dog biscuits around the house and sit back and watch the dust vanishing. Admittedly, you will have a slick of saliva on every flat surface, but at least you will be able to see the flat surface.

Another option is to arrange a date with a homely girl. You've met the type before. You meet her in a bar and ask her back to your place and to your astonishment, she agrees. On the way home you're fantasizing about how erotic it will be to have sex swinging from the lampshade - or even have sex - but the first thing she does when she gets to your apartment is flounce up a cushion and ask you where your cleaning cupboard is, as if you would know.

The ultimate option is to get married. Apart from choosing the color of your Harley, this is the biggest decision you will ever make. Consider carefully and have your bride-to-be sign a marriage contract. I speak from bitter personal experience. After dust blocked up all the windows in my apartment and I thought it was perpetual night, I finally decided that marriage was the only way out of my dilemma.

The first thing my new bride did after I (symbolically) carried her over the threshold was to hang a medical diagnostic certificate above the mantel shelf. It stated that she was Allergic to Housework. The certificate stunned me until I realized that if she wore a mask, she could still do the housework. My imagination went into overdrive as I pictured my wife in a mask, color coded goggles, and an itsy bitsy thong, Swiffering her way around the apartment. I was drooling over this kinky picture when she dropped the other shoe. She was also a bug-hugger.

And her favorite bug was Dermatophagoides Pteronyssinus, 'Skin-Eating Spider' to you and me. Guess what this invisible bug munches on? Dust! That is the 10% of the dust in our homes which is actually our old skin. The other 80% of dust is this dust-mite and its fecal matter. According to my new wife, if it wasn't for Dermawhatchamcallit, we would have to wade through our own and our ancestor's flaked off skin, and would need to surf between rooms.

If she told me this to disgust me, she was wasting her time, as anyone who has been in my apartment knows. I shrugged when she told me that 10% of my pillow's weight was dead dust-mites and their droppings and that they cra....er....defecate 200 times during their 6 week lifetime. When I'm snoring, the world can come to an end if it pleases. What's the odd mite dropping between friends?

I filed for divorce after I found her giving a sermon to a pinhead. She insisted she was preaching to the million bugs which always congregate on pinheads. The divorce was fast-tracked when I pointed out to the judge that there wasn't even a ladder leaning against the pin, so there was no way for the bugs to get onto the pinhead, therefore she must be hallucinating.

Eventually, I did what I should have done originally. I settled for a pack of bloodhounds and a truckload of dog biscuits. Luckily, the Bloodhounds love pizza sauce, so the infra-red receptor is forever clean, ensuring that I can always change channels. Every Spring I bring in a giraffe to lick clean the high places. For dessert, the giraffe licks my pillow. It makes for a wet pillow, but wipes out Dermatophagoides Pteronyssinus for at least six weeks. Who could ask for anything more? Now where is that remote?