… a Criterion for Cleaning by Men
(c) 2020, Davd
I don’t like dirty quarters… and that is not a reference to money [nor to anatomy]. One day last year I was taken to visit a man, putatively a “professional man”, whose floor, if I remember correctly, would have been due for cleaning if it had been occupied by sheep. On that floor, one of several cats was playing with a dying mouse.
Not my concept of home .. nor of camp. If it had been my workshop, I’d have swept the mouse and cats out the door, swept the worst of the dirt into a square ended shovel, and gradually worked my way down to where a regular broom and a dustpan would finish the job.
The chairs and table were in comparably bad condition (though not as dirty as the floor, any more than your shirt or even pants get as dirty as your socks. Even dirt obeys the Law of Gravity.) They would have received different cleaning to a stricter standard (I don’t eat off the floor, I often put my food on a table to eat; and if an apple or orange be the food of the moment, I might even put it straight on the tabletop, no bowl, no plate. Heck, I don’t even put my coffee mug on the floor — doubt you do either.)
I have also been scolded and shamed by (mostly women, very few other men) for not cleaning to their standards. My standards are somewhere in the middle of the range. There are dwelling conditions I have seen that are not near clean enough, not near tidy enough, for my comfort; and there are Ladies who consider my standards badly inadequate (or at least act as if they do. If they be actual Ladies, they are titled nobility — that’s what Lady really means — and have servants to do their cleaning. Much easier to demand fancy cleaning if you have ample money to pay others to get themselves dirty doing it.)
Maybe some of you men reading this have had similar experiences: You have visited dwellings which are too dirty for you liking (perhaps even for your tolerance — I did not throw up among those several cats, but I have always had a strong stomach.) Elsewhen, you have been shamed, or wanna-be shamed, by [mostly women] for “filth” that was at worst floor-clutter, like the shavings in Granpère’s basement workshop when he or I was using a lathe.
Aha! [or in the other grandfather’s Deutsch, ach! So!]
There is a phrase, which anyone competent in any major dialect of English should recognize, that refers to my middle of the range standard of cleanliness: A Tradesman’s Workshop. The specifics may vary by trade — friend Steve is a chef, Grandfather was a master electrician, one son finishes drywall while another is a refrigeration mechanic. Bill, may his spirit delight in Paradise, drove a tugboat. My friend John Romaniuk was a master welder who built an elegantly arched foot bridge over a deep rock canyon and a river some 100 feet below … the arched handrail paralleled the bridge deck, and the web of triangles of welded structural aluminum that joined them supported it. These were (some still are) men of valuable skill. Their workshops were not dirty, nor were they often if ever, squeaky clean. Squeaks are for mice, and hinges in need of oil.
None of these men kept a dirty house, nor dirty workshop. Most men do not. Shaming us for failing to be Nice or decorative, is a misuse of the word clean*.
This blog is published to share a phrase I believe describes many men’s cleaning standards — a middle range of cleanliness appropriate to lives where work is more important than “looks” and which, spoken in answer to wanna-be shaming, will sweep aside the nonsense like lathe shavings. As a gardener, my workshop is less dirty than the garden (which, being inherently made of dirt, is clean and dirty at once). As a forester, not much different, though forest dirt is normally covered with leafage and small plants. As a writer, my workshop is cluttered by paper more than anything else. They get cleaned somewhat often, when the clutter begins to handicap the work, or perhaps much sooner.
Next time somebody tries to shame you for a tradesman’s-workshop standard of cleanliness, remind her that work is more important than looks, looks are transitory and subjective — and Nice is a four-letter word.
Notes:
* Yes, there are workshops that should be sterile-clean. Surgical operating theatres are such spaces, and some kinds of micro-precision manufacturing sites.
