I’m always getting spam email, most of which is pretty obvious. I really don’t have a need to extend the size of my penis or cleanse my colon or what not. However, they’re now getting more tactical in their efforts to beat the spam filter. They’re now coming in broken English. The other day I received this as the message attached to the transmission. “Important, you need read, important things.” Better luck next time.

My neighbor, the doormat divorcee had a family crisis in Ohio and asked if I’d look after her cat and dog while she was away for a week. Part of this job involves cleaning the cat’s litter box. I don’t have a cat—for that very reason. I agreed. Last night was my first experience with such a thing. Growing up on the farm we always had a dozen or so cats, but NEVER in the house. They lived in the barn and kept the mice and rats to a minimum—they were basically just another farm tool. We fed them, but were careful not to over feed, lest they get lazy. This damn cat is fat, lazy, and dumb. I managed to dump the contents of the box into a Wal-Mart bag, tie it up and toss it in the trash…then refilled the kitty litter box. Since I’d never seen such a thing I was amazed at the size of the cat’s turds—good grief, some were as big as my fist. Is this normal? I can’t believe something that size can produce such an object from the latter half of its body.

I must also editorialize about the condition of the neighbor’s home. I’m no Martha Stewart, but I refuse to live in filth and disrepair. This home has had some serious abuse. First was the stench. The place stunk to high Heaven. Secondly, the walls were scarred, nicked, and damaged. They were in SEVERE need of a paint job. The carpet is pock marked with spots of dirt and other nastiness stains. There were toys, clothes, and other such junk strewn about all willy nilly. From the outside, this is a fairly nice split level home in a middle class neighborhood, but inside it looks like something out of Baghdad. My wife would never allow such a thing—ESPECIALLY when we have asked somebody to be in there while we were away.

This leads me to a question, are people as good at housekeeping as our parents? I know at my home, thanks to my wife, the answer is a hearty yes. My wife runs a very tight ship and cleans stuff daily. There are also those points during the year, usually in the late spring, that every wall in the house must be washed. It’s a duty I’m dragged into kicking and screaming, but truly I don’t mind too much because I like having the house look nice. Every two years a different series of rooms gets a fresh coat of paint. Again, I’m not excited about the job, but after it’s done I like the feel of it. She often does the redecorating thing with a new arrangement of knick-knacks about every three or four years. The effort is also accompanied by new curtains, new bedspreads/comforters, and often a rearrangement of furniture. I’m glad she’s like that because I couldn’t stand to live in a hovel. She says it’s exactly how her mother used to clean house, but then laments she’s not nearly as strict about it as her mother. (Holy shit!) Anyway, when we’re in the middle of one of these jobs, a neighbor will drop by and generally recoil in horror and disbelief. They say they never do anything like this. When I was a bachelor, I generally had a clean place—thanks to the teachings of my mother. However, I was big on everything being put up and neat—I was not likely to move the couch to vacuum under it. Here’s my question….how detailed are you in your housekeeping habits? Are you anal about the whole thing or do you just spot clean where things “look” dirty?

Deer season is underway and it allowed me to use one of those crazy, “Here’s your sign” jokes this week. I shot a deer with my bow and hung it up to drain on an old swing set in the yard. The neighbor pulled in, got out of his car and said, “Did you get a deer?” I replied, “Nope, he jumped into the yard and said fuck-it and hung himself.” The neighbor looked at me the way most people look at Jeff Kay and walked away.