Category: Funny Business

Now that I’ve retired from the newspaper business and transitioned to the role of Trophy Husband, I’ve taken a much more active role in cleaning house.

Since my wife heads to the office every day and makes money, I figure the least I can do is try to make our domicile nice and clean when she gets home.

To that end, I’ve made out a schedule that includes vacuuming (twice a week), dusting (once a week), mopping (twice a week), cleaning the upstairs bathroom (occasionally) and cleaning the downstairs bathroom (every day … sometimes more than once).

I won’t say I’ve got it down to a science, but I have developed a pretty solid system.

As for the first item on the list, I could vacuum constantly and it still probably wouldn’t be enough. When you have four animals that live indoors, there will be shedding.

And when one of those animals is a giant, long-haired gray and white cat, fur will float and fly. I have never in my life seen a critter shed like Bane.

Plus, his fur tends to gather in specific places, as though there are various hair hubs situated throughout the house.

We have a coat rack in the corner of the dining room and on any given day you can look behind it and find what appears to be the head of Bea Arthur.

Sadly, minutes after you’ve vacuumed the entire house you’ll find fresh evidence of shedding, so there’s no point in fighting a losing battle.

So, I vacuum on Tuesday and Friday and just try not to notice all the extraneous fur the other days of the week.

Dusting can also be a challenge.

When the sun shines through the windows at a certain angle, it exposes all the dust that collects – and it covers everything from your stove to your television.

When you stop to think about all the stuff you’re constantly breathing in, it can be scary.

I’ve learned the best thing to do is to keep your curtains closed, Miss Havisham-style. It doesn’t decrease the dust, but out of sight, out of mind, you know?

As for mopping, it’s another task that should probably be done daily.

Sometimes you’ll track in dirt from outside, and occasionally when cooking soup, a renegade tomato will decide to make a run for it and hit the floor.

And of course, there’s the animal factor.

Cats tend to barf.

And our oldest dog Charlie, likes to drink a lot of water and then yak half of it up.

To people without animals, it sounds gross.

To people with animals, it is gross.

But it’s all part of the experience, and that’s why mopping is necessary.

Cleaning the upstairs bathroom (or Batroom) is easy because it’s barely used and reserved for the rare times when “company” comes to stay with us. And the reason it’s called the Batroom is due to its décor, which is completely Batman-themed.

Normally all that’s required here is a light feather dusting; no need to even open the “Batcave.”

But the downstairs bathroom … well, that’s another story.

I’ve always admired those who clean for a living, whether it be businesses or homes. Aside from doing hard but necessary work, they often have to deal with inconsiderate people.

I’ve been to public restrooms and witnessed unspeakable horrors.

There are toilets that look like crime scenes – ones in which the perpetrators have no regard for those who might follow them.

I have seen urinals used as trash receptacles. I once ventured into a gas station restroom and saw that someone had deposited half a Twinkie on top of a urinal cake.

I mean, what the hell? Who eats a Twinkie while peeing?

Perhaps the bigger question is, why eat only half a Twinkie?

I have opened doors to restrooms and been driven back by foulness so profound I still have nightmares about it.

So in order to avoid such evil, each and every day I tackle the toilet, sink and shower with brushes, cleaners, paper towels and, if need be, incantations so that they remain as clean as is humanly possible.

The idea is that if you ever have to use the downstairs restroom at my house, you will never see what cannot be unseen.

In just the few weeks I’ve taken on housecleaning full time, I’ve developed a great appreciation for the skill involved in doing it right. And I still have much to learn.

So the next time you run into the person who does the cleaning where you work or where you live, give them a thumbs up and a sincere thank you.

They deserve it.

And when you use the bathroom – mine or anyone else’s –  act like you’ve done it before.

And finish eating your damn Twinkie first.

Captain America, Steve Rogers, is a supersoldier who battled Axis powers in World War II, was frozen for seven decades, and then was reanimated so he – the First Avenger – could fight alongside the modern Avengers.

Steve Rogers, Captain America, is our new dog – a rescue Chihuahua who fights a small stuffed monkey, gets kissed on the head a lot, and is now a member of what amounts to a Fantastic Four of animals that live with me and my wife.

For whatever reason, having four critters establishes the proper feng shui in our household, so to that end order has been restored to our corner of the universe.

Steve joins Charlie the Sheltie and Bane and Thor, two shelter cats, as a full-fledged family member.

But …

Steve is very young.

Steve is also very Chihuahua.

And that means on a scale of 1 to 10, Steve has an energy level of 793.

Having never raised human children from their infancy, I have no real point of reference when it comes to the differences between nurturing toddler humans and nurturing toddler canines.

I realize you probably shouldn’t crate train humans or teach them to poop in the yard, although to each his own.

I don’t judge.

And I understand human babies are fragile, sometimes cry in the middle of the night, and can be very high maintenance.

Chihuahuas present different challenges, of course, but are most certainly high maintenance.

Steve freaks out any time my wife or I leave the room, making this weird, high-pitched noise which sounds similar to the sounds I imagine Gilbert Gottfried makes while getting goosed.

He also pees a little every time he gets excited, which is quite often. I’m not sure if that will go away as he grows up, but I can’t really fault him.

I pee a little every time I get excited, too, like when I find a Pop Tart I didn’t realize I had, or hear the theme song to the “Batman” TV series.

One issue that has been a bit of a problem, though, concerns his randy nature.

Although he was “fixed” 10 days ago, Steve remains quite the horndog.

In the brief time we’ve had him he has been romantically linked to Charlie’s bits and pieces, both my wife’s and my right arm, a neighbor’s left calf, and several cardboard boxes (boxes that I am not at liberty to name due to nondisclosure agreements).

Oddly – yet thankfully – he largely ignores both cats.

Thor, our oldest feline, sized him up fairly quickly the first day we brought him home, gave him a hiss and a paw swipe to the nose, and then went about his business.

Steve won’t even look at him and Thor responds in kind.

Bane, who is still technically a kitten but is on pace to be the size of a Bengal tiger by Christmas, seemed almost fearful of Steve at first.

He stayed mostly on the porch and waited to eat during that 10-minute window late at night when Steve decides to sleep.

But after two or three days he started getting closer and closer to the Chi, trying to figure out if Steve was merely an oversized rat and edible.

Ultimately, Bane apparently has come to terms with the fact that the 4-pound dog is not a snack, and now passes by him without incident or acknowledgement.

As of this writing, Charlie is sprawled out on the floor napping while Bane and Thor are snoozing away in the two rocking chairs situated in the corners of our den.

And Steve?

Well, Captain America is currently licking my chin and forcing me to type one-handed because I’m holding him in my left arm.

At any moment he’ll leap down and attempt to assault Charlie – who has learned the hard way that restraining orders are not honored in the animal kingdom.

Then Steve will rip and snort and run and jump and flip and flop and probably pee a little.

And I’m gonna love every single minute of it.

And maybe pee a little, too.

Last Wednesday, I had a near-death experience.

As I faded from consciousness and started to slip into the great unknown, I was suddenly pulled into a bright, white tunnel of light. And at the end of the tunnel there were several figures waving to me. They weren’t completely clear, but I’m pretty sure they were members of the boy band O-Town, urging me to join them at the Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort.

But I refused, for I was not yet ready to pass from this life, even though going to one of the largest, most spectacular entertainment, gaming, dining and shopping destinations in the United States was tempting.

Nah, I’m just funnin’ with you.

I was nowhere near death (or a casino), but I did feel bad enough that my wife, Mary, insisted on taking me to a doc-in-a-box – for the second time in five days.

The “adventure” started last weekend when my back began to ache.

That morning I had walked several miles and done some yard work, and I just figured maybe I pulled a muscle or something.

By afternoon the pain increased dramatically, and spread to my stomach.

And this wasn’t the garden variety stomach ache – you know, the kind where it hisses and growls and occasionally speaks in unknown tongues. This was a sharp, almost continuous pain that caused me to double over.

Mary started researching what my malady might be. Even though the pain was in my back and stomach, it could be my heart, gallbladder,  kidneys, any number of things.

There was also the chance that an alien had embedded itself in my stomach and was prepared to burst out John Hurt-style, but it’s been months since I’ve had close contact with extraterrestrials, so I quickly discounted that as an option.

Whatever it was, she ushered me into the car and began driving toward the clinic. Long story short, the clinic was closed, but by the time we got there I felt better anyway, and we decided to head home.

The more I thought about it, the more I was sure it was just a case of gas gone nuclear and would never happen again.

Man, was I ever wrong.

It happened again mid-week, and this time we went to a bigger, better (and more importantly, open) doc-in-the-box.

It’s no exaggeration to say the pain I felt was the worst I’ve ever experienced. So much so that after doing X-rays and performing an electrocardiogram test, the doctor actually had to give me a pain-relieving shot before sending me to the emergency room.

That’s when my day got markedly worse.

I was told the minute I got to the ER I was to see a certain doctor, who would immediately set up a CAT scan. That was fine with me, because I love animals.

But the CAT scan didn’t come until after I had been there for five hours – and after a nurse had used my left arm for target practice trying to draw blood. In retrospect, I don’t think he was a nurse at all, but just a random dude who happened upon some blue scrubs, showed up, and clocked in.

He and the staff also insisted on redoing all the tests that had already been done at the doc-in-a-box a couple of hours earlier, even though the paperwork I presented told them specifically not to do that.

This caused Mary to curse.

She cursed out of earshot of my tormentors, but she cursed eloquently and with great conviction.

It’s one of the reasons I love her.

Once the crew finally got their shit together, they gave me another shot for pain, put me on an IV, and administered an ultrasound test. They looked at my liver, gallbladder, appendix, and, I suppose, whatever else lurked beneath the surface.

By the end of my seven hour odyssey you know what they found?

Nothing.

I mean, they found all the organs, but they just couldn’t pinpoint the problem.

Kidney stones were ruled out, and they couldn’t be sure my gall bladder or appendix were causing the pain.

They just told me to follow up with my primary care physician, gave me a prescription for Hillbilly Heroin, and then sent me on my way.

I was puzzled – and concerned.

I eat healthy foods (mostly, except for Pop-Tarts), I exercise (usually, unless I’d rather sit around and eat Pop-Tarts) and my weight is under control (give or take 15 or 20 pounds … and the availability of Pop-Tarts).

But then I realized that some people in the best of health die unexpectedly.

Look at Roger Bannister. He was the first man to break the four-minute mile and was in tip-top physical condition. Yet, he passed away recently.

He was 88, but still.

Finally, my “regular” doctor looked me over on Thursday and sent me to a gastroenterologist, who set up an MRI on Friday that proved negative.

So …

On Monday I’ll have something called a HIDA scan in which a radioactive tracer is injected into a vein in my arm. My only hope at this point is that during the procedure, I’ll be bitten by a spider and thus became a superhero.

I think after all this nonsense, I’ve earned it.