How to Clean the Garage

Cripes you guys. Here is another Sunday come and gone while most of you sat on your big fat La-Z-Boy® watching NFL Football and eating potato chips. I’m not sayin’ there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just sayin’ sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns and get something done around here, ferchrissake. And I have. I have cleaned my garage.

Cleaning the garage is neither an easy task, nor is it a pleasant one. It is not for the faint of heart. Dirty garages are gross: spider webs, spider eggs, those dead orange beetles all over the place, a good variety of other lifeless insects, a few live insects, and a fair amount of formerly live bait. While I consider myself a feminist, I am not wrong to say that cleaning the garage is mostly a man’s job. It’s not that a woman can’t do it as well or probably better than a man. It’s just that she probably won’t.

If you have owned your home for thirty years I won’t be able to help you. You have, by now, developed your own garage-cleaning system and are too old and stubborn to change your ways. You’re either a guy whose garage is always meticulously ordered (anal retentive), always a filthy mess (good-for-nothing slob), or somewhere in between these two conditions but heading in the filthy mess direction (regular guy). These helpful hints are directed to younger men who may be newer homeowners and not yet in foreclosure.

First, it is important to note that cleaning the garage is not an undertaking to be dealt with in increments. It’s going to take all day so you must go all in or stay out. Cleaning half today and the rest later simply doesn’t work. It’s not unlike changing the oil in your car. You don’t drain the oil one Saturday and add the new oil next Saturday. If you just do half the job you are wasting your time and asking for trouble.

Timing is everything. So when you think you are ready to clean your garage the first thing you should day is wait. I don’t mean wait until noon to start. And I don’t mean wait until tomorrow. I mean wait at least a month. If you have cleaned your garage in the past four months, it’s not time yet. Ideally, you don’t want to do this more than twice a year, about as often as you get your teeth cleaned at the dentist is about right.

Now that you understand the importance of waiting, you must also wait for a nice day. You can’t clean a garage when it’s raining or snowing. Extremely windy days won’t do. Hot and cold days are also out. When you get just the right day you’ll know it. If it’s a day nice enough to go fishing then it’s nice enough to clean your garage. Of course, if it’s a nice enough day to go fishing I’d say go fishing. You don’t want to get carried away with this thing. It’s only a garage. You can always close the door. Well, if you’ve waited the proper length of time maybe you can’t close the door. I’m just sayin’. If it comes down to fishing or garage cleaning, it’s a no-brainer.

Now let’s talk about the tools you’ll need to do a good job. Nothing fancy or expensive is required but you don’t want to cut corners on cleaning equipment either. Get yourself a good broom, a dustpan, a Shop-Vac®, some clean rags, a few empty coffee cans, and some of those five-gallon plastic pails. You probably already have all of these things. They’re in your garage somewhere. I think you can see where this is going.

Okay, let’s begin. Remove your car(s) from the driveway. You’re going to need the space for spillover when you open the door. When I first started cleaning my garage I used to start by taking everything out and putting it in the driveway. This is a big mistake. Trust me; if you do this you will never get done. If you take everything apart you have to put it all back together. There will be parts left over and you won’t know where they go. Then you’ll be looking for an 800 number for a garage cleaning emergency help line and there isn’t one.

Start with the workbench. Take everything off it and put it in the plastic pails. Sweep off the bench with a hand broom and put everything back where it belongs. There will be a lot of things you won’t recognize and you won’t know what to do with them. If you throw them away you will need them later. If you keep them you’ll never use them. You’ll just move them every time you clean the garage. There is no getting around this. Here’s what I do. Put all these things into a plastic bucket and store them under the workbench. Any items that you haven’t used by the next time you clean the garage should be thrown away during the subsequent cleaning. Don’t save them for the rummage sale. You’re not going to have one. Never throw away the plastic pail. You will need it for the new things you don’t recognize on your workbench.

Now we can deal with the big items. If it’s fall put all the summer stuff in the basement. If it’s spring put all the winter stuff in the basement. Don’t bring anything up from the basement to put into the garage regardless of the season. That defeats your purpose. That stuff will make its way up on its own over time.

Next take all the stuff out of one corner, clean the corner, and put the stuff back in the corner. If there is anything you don’t recognize, leave it in the middle. Repeat this process for each corner. Now you have four clean corners and a pile of crap in the middle. Go through this pile and separate the stuff you’ll never need from the stuff you might need. Now you have four clean corners and two piles of crap. Throw away both piles and sweep the middle of the floor.

Now you can park your car(s) in the garage. You’ll probably want to leave the door open so your neighbors can see what a neat person you are. Maybe you should go ahead and close the door. They might think you're anal retentive.

Coming soon: How to Clean the Basement

Looking For Mr. Mxyzptlk

After a promising early childhood I became a surprisingly low-achieving adolescent. Some child development experts in those days blamed it on comic books. In fact, when I was very young a subcommittee of The Senate Judiciary Committee investigating causes of juvenile delinquency convened televised hearings scapegoating the comic book industry. They may have been right.

Things only got worse. The coming-of-age stage of my life had a period I've heard armchair psychologists refer to as "the lost weekend." Mine comprised the first two decades of my adult life. The epiphany, albeit slow in arriving, eventually dawned on me. There was no shame in (and maybe even some advantage to) acquiring a permanent address and some visible means of support.

So, I got a job. In fits and starts I took a wife. We bought a house. We made a home. We raised a family. We worked hard. We kept our yard nice, sort of. We paid our taxes. We saved our money. Some of it.

At the risk of being completely honest, let me tell you this: I am not ashamed to admit that I've never been particularly fond of working. Indeed, there are any number of endeavors that I rank above labor on my preference list. I am not lazy but I am fully capable of slothful behavior when the opportunity is presented. I loved it when John Lennon said, "I'm the kind of bloke who can get up in the morning and start doing nothing right away." Of course, he already had some money in the bank by the time he was entertaining us with that quip.

While it is probably not advisable to reveal too much of the afforementioned during a job interview, most of you probably won't have to probe too deeply into the core of your own souls before being forced to admit that my confessed character traits are not all that exceptional.

Now and again--usually while perusing dog-eared Reader's Digest magazines in the dentist's waiting room--we come across the occasional and always uplifting story about some rare bird who, at an advanced age, achieves remarkable heights. You know what I'm talking about. A 58-year old janitor goes to college and becomes a practicing urologist. A great-grandmother who never made it beyond the eighth grade writes a memoir that ends up on The New York Times bestseller list for forty-six weeks, sells the movie rights, and spends the rest of her years in a lovely cottage somewhere in Provence where she has a torrid affair with a studly farmer who owns a famous truffle-hunting pig. Or Colonel Sanders goes from being a steamboat pilot to an insurance salesman to a fry cook and at age sixty-five uses $105 from his first Social Security check to start a chain of chicken stands that make him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Again, I make clean breast of (pun intended) this probably-universal truth. These late-in-life rags to riches tales hold great appeal for me. I cling to them for secret hope even when I suspect, deep down, I'll be doing well to eke out a paltry existence on the wages of a Wal-Mart Greeter in my Golden Years. And only then if by some fat chance I am able to foist myself off on some gullible rube in the human resource office as a "people person."

The above disclosure is made more painful by the fact that I was this close to the American Dream. Near the end of the mortgage. A loving wife. One grown child finished with college and doing well. Another in college and doing well. One almost grown still at home and doing well. Nest egg building up a little. A softening mid-section but generally good health. A few good years left to work and save. A nice little boat with a dependable Evinrude. Plenty of fishing gear. Almost three dozen good duck decoys. Everything, really.

And then, just as we finally rid ourselves of an oppressive Christian Taliban regime in The White House we find out that their years of bungling coupled with the egregious body of work put forth by some five hundred or so political geniuses over on Capitol Hill have left our financial institutions in the hands of a powerful criminal class who have so effectively corrupted and/or duped said glad-handing baby-smoochers that the new president can't find enough honest public servants in the whole damn country to fill a dozen cabinet posts!

The stock market has gone bust. Banks are failing. General Motors is broke. Unemployment is rocketing into space while home values flame out during reentry. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are omnipresent. 401Ks have been invested in chain letters. Cripes, you guys. Don't get me started but THE BASTARDS ARE EVERYWHERE.

The upshot of all this is that things may be even tougher than I thought. My hopes of a late in life success story are fading fast. On top of that, I just found out you have to buy a ticket to win the lottery and even that doesn't really improve your chances much.

I am mad as hell and I'm probably going to take it some more. But not lying down. Starting today I am making new plans and setting new goals.

I am going to rekindle the dying embers of my promising youth. I am looking for my old comic books. I am going to seriously research and perhaps replicate the dastardly deeds of the archrivals of Superman and Batman and the whole frickin' Justice League of America: Lex Luthor, Brainiac, The Penguin, The Joker, Mr. Mxyzptlk (Pictured above. My brother pronounced this as Mr. Mittzleplitz but I'm not sure if that's right).

For alas, I am pretty well convinced that, having exhausted all honest means, the only hope of a simple, comfortable retirement lies in first achieving total galactic domination, a lofty goal for a middle-aged* man. I'm going to pick myself up and dust myself off and get started right away. Well, as soon as I get done bidding for crankbaits on eBay.





(*) Assumes the author lives to be 113.

Washington's Birthday

People call it Presidents Day or President's Day or Presidents' Day. Congress is trying to reach a bi-partisan compromise on the apostrophe. Our friends at the post office were somehow able to cause the holiday to fall on the third Monday of every February. Now it only rarely occurs on the actual birthday of one of the great Americans it is supposed to honor. Officially, the holiday is still called Washington's Birthday and is mostly known for paint sales at Hardware Hank's.

Since I am the only guy in my neighborhood who has the day off I thought I would do some research so that when you get home from the salt mine tonight you can regale your family with a few fun facts concerning some of our favorite presidents as you sit down to another supper of oatmeal helper.

George Washington is known as "The Father of His Country." He had wooden teeth that he crafted from a cherry tree he felled as a young boy. His dentures would have been much more attractive had he removed the bark. Self-conscious of his smile, he never posed for photographers.

Thomas Jefferson was a redhead who married a widow, Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772 but preferred sleeping with his slaves. The beloved comedian, Red Skelton, is his bastard great-great-grandchild.

Andrew Jackson spent much of his time working on improvements to Washington's dental experiments. For this he became known as "Old Hickory." He was the first president to champion the cause of the common man. His wife Rachel smoked a pipe. He killed a lot of guys.

Martin Van Buren was known as "The Little Magician." He had enormous sideburns in which he was able to conceal silk kerchiefs, bouquets of colorful flowers, rabbits, doves, and shiny coins.

James K. Polk was the first openly gay president and the inventor of the polka dot.

Millard Fillmore (pictured), our thirteenth president, was the only man with double consonants in both his names to hold the highest office in the land. He looked exactly like Alec Baldwin.

Abraham Lincoln wore a stovepipe hat and is considered by many historians to be our greatest president. Surprisingly, nobody ever talks about how awful his hair was. Believe me, if you saw his comb on the bathroom counter you would not want to touch it.

Ulysses S. Grant had the best first name of all the presidents. He was in the army but drank more like a sailor. Mark Twain gave him the idea to write a book after his term in office was through. He earned a lot of money on the deal and died shortly after he finished the last page. Many future presidents followed his lead but now they get an advance.

Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president but he wasn't the first two-timer in office. After his presidency he pitched for the Phillies and was elected to The Baseball Hall of Fame.

William McKinley played The Wizard of Oz opposite Judy Garland in the 1939 movie version of L. Frank Baum's classic story .

Theodore Roosevelt's mother and wife both died on the same day causing him to become a cowboy, soldier, big-game hunter, and famous author. He was such a great president that he made the first trip on Air Force One before there even was an Air Force. He wrote the hit song, "Woolly-Bully."

William Howard Taft was huge, almost as big as Al Gore.

If Woodrow Wilson had had the right middle name he could have invented the Internet.

Herbert Hoover went to Stanford. His ACT scores were out of this world. He became a great engineer and invented the vacuum cleaner. As president he really sucked.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president four times. He drank cocktails with Churchill who was named after a cigarette but preferred cigars. FDR could never get them into that narrow holder so he stuck with the coffin nails. That's about all I know about Roosevelt except that Rush Limbaugh didn't like him much.

Harry S. Truman was president when I was born. He was a haberdasher. That means he gave a lot of people hell.

John F. Kennedy was a war hero and also our first Catholic president. He was married to Jackie O. and slept with Marilyn Monroe. Somebody should have told him when they say nun they mean none!

Lyndon B. Johnson became president after he hired some mafia guys, space aliens, union big shots, Lady Bird and two nuns to kill Kennedy. He was mostly known for his big ears and a propensity to reveal surgical scars whenever someone came near him with a camera.

Richard Nixon was one of the worst presidents ever but it didn't matter much. We were doing so many drugs while he was in office we didn't pay any attention to him until the very end. That was some party.

Gerald Ford was the first president with his own weekly live comedy show on NBC. Him and Belushi were so wild it drove his wife to drink.

Jimmy Carter was a really nice guy. He committed adultery in his heart. That's not so bad.

Ronald Reagan was a movie star before he was president but the movies weren't very good. He was pretty old when he got elected. Early on during his tenure he was shot just below the nipple by John Hinckley. Fortunately the bullet was deflected by his belt buckle.

George H. W. Bush threw up on the emporor of Japan. He was voted out of office when it was discovered that he was married to the guy on the Quaker Oats box.

William Jefferson Clinton was the first president to smoke pot. The first time he came in The Oval Office the Marine Corps Band struck up a rousing version of "Inhale to the Chief." The next time, he got himself impeached. He is also known as "Slick Willy" or "Stimulus Bill."

Al Gore* was president for the shortest time.

George Bush brought honor and dignity back to The White House and huge ratings to late-night comedy shows.

Of all the presidents we've ever had Barack Obama is the most recent.

Thaw

Hope struggles to its feet. The glacier recedes. Well into February, a January thaw arrives at last. High temperatures are predicted to exceed freezing each day of the upcoming week.

For the first time in two months the driveway is freed of ice, cars were not put in the garage overnight, the fire in the wood stove was left to die. Outside, I placed my ear against the downspout to hear the amplified trickling of running water, beautiful music.

It gets cold here. Sometimes it gets so cold there is nothing but cold. For several days in January the anemic, yellow, lights at the time and temperature bank seemed frozen in place: "6:40 a.m. Minus 26 F."

Old friends who live in warmer climes would call or email with grave concern for our welfare. Those who contend with wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides, tidal waves and hurricanes seem much more frightened by our thermal deficiencies. Such fears are not unreasonable. 30 below zero feels like death.

The damage is mostly psychological. If you are like me, a common laborer with a reasonably normal workday, it's dark when you drive in; it's dark when you drive home. And if, like me, your job exposes you to the elements for four or five hours of your shift, the cold eventually makes its way like a parasite into the base of your spine. You are its unwilling host. Your body feels more like a carcass.

We each conjure our own tonics. We move closer to the cast iron wood stove. Mrs. reads her garden catalogues. I shop for fishing lures on eBay and dream of barefoot, shirtsleeve days drifting along a woody shoreline casting for Northern, Walleye, Small-mouth Bass. In defiance of frigid Arctic air masses I shave my whiskers and crop my hair back to its summer length. When others complain of the cold I repeat the mantra of an old duck hunting friend, "When it's too tough for you it's just right for me."

In the throes of the deep freeze our descriptions tend to the profane. Even our best poets are reduced to cliches concerning the anatomy of witches, well-diggers, and brass monkeys. Upon defrosting, indubitably, we resort to the sacred. We are redeemed, resurrected. We know our salvation is only fleeting but we have faith that our suffering is not permanent. Save for the occasional broken pipe or dead car battery the damage heals on its own.

And now the reparations have begun. We have more than ten hours of sunlight each day. Stillness gives way to movement. A pink orange dawn paints the edge of the horizon when I drive to work. There is enough daylight left to sweep the garage when I get home (if I want to). It is no longer unreasonable to wash the car.

And even though my woodpile has diminished, so too has my fear that this is the winter without end.