The Difference Between Men and Women

I should be studying for tomorrow night's Economics exam, but I am frantically cleaning because a woman is coming in the morning to assess my worth as a human being.

Well, actually she is coming to assess the value of our condo for a re-finance, but as any red-blooded American woman knows, she is really coming to JUDGE me and and the home I keep.

This is the difference between men and women. When the folks at Wells Fargo said we needed an assessment, Husband said "Of course. How soon can you get here?" I started wondering if I had time to buy new color-coordinated plastic bins for the closets and garage. (I don't.) When we tell men we're refinancing they say, "What rate did you get?" My mother's first words were, "Make sure the carpet looks good."

So today I did the normal dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen, but I also washed the floors, cleaned the bathrooms including the shower doors (yea for Mr. Clean Eraser!) and vacuumed the dust off the fans on the bathroom ceilings, which I usually do approximately never. I know she's gonna look up there. I also stashed half the crap on the kitchen counters into the cupboards so it looks neater and did all the laundry so there won't be a basket of dirty clothes in the closet. (I'll probably do one more in the morning with our clothes from today. I'm not even kidding.)

The biggest and most important project of the day, which I am almost done with, is using Scott's Liquid Gold on all the woodwork, doors and cupboards. If you don't know, this stuff is indeed worth its weight in gold. You spray it on a cloth and just lightly wipe the wood, and it cleans it and makes it look beautiful and glowing - not shiny or sticky. According to the can, it "restores and enhances wood's natural color, grain and luster; removes dust, deep cleans and replenishes moisture; helps protect against cracking, warping and fading; and hides nicks and scratches." I don't know what's in it, but it smells like almonds. So the assessor lady is either going to say "My! What beautiful wood!" or she's going to think "Jesus, these people drink a lot of Amaretto."

The lady is coming tomorrow at 8 a.m. EIGHT O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Cripes. So Husband will wake me up when he leaves for work at 7:00 and I have one hour to do the last-minute things like make the bed, Windex the bathrooms again, replace the ratty towel Husband refuses to throw away with a new one, and throw all the clutter into covered baskets. I also have to remember to remove or at least turn around the tube of foot cream I have in the shower. It's a great product called "Toe the Line," on which my 45 year-old husband wrote, with a Sharpie, the word "Camel." SIGH.

During that precious hour I also have to make myself look presentable, of course, and drink enough coffee to appear coherent. At least when she's gone I will be up and ready to study for the whole day.

You may think I am over-doing it, but I want this woman to write on her clipboard "A+! This is the most well-cared for home I have ever assessed!" Face it, women are afraid of how other women judge their housekeeping skills and will do anything to appear better homemakers than they really are. Men do things like write "camel" on a tube of "Toe the Line."