Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 125, 17 August 1927, Page 5

Mundane Musings

Spring Cleaning! BY A MERE MALE

It has come again . . . Once more the old miseries, the old doubts and fears surge upon me, and I go about my day’s task wondering if I shall ever settle down to my happy routine again. What is the use of complaining? Women will do it. They have perfectly —to them—adequate reasons for it, and the husband who makes a fuss never stops spring cleaning. He only adds to the discomfort of it. But you must admit that he is entitled to a certain amount of consideration. After all said and done, lie’s the item that makes spring-clean-ing possible ! Surely you ought to let him down as lightly as possible ! As I see it, there are two points of view : yours—and his. And, in a partnership, you have to give consideration to your partner’s view. Married life is as good an example of partnership as you can find anywhere in life. If you cannot agree entirely, thfen you ought to make a compromise. If I know anything of average married life, its happiness is based upon give and take, as all life is. If you forget that truism, there will be trouble. While most of us detest springcleaning, there’s this to remember. We all like the result of it, and after it is over the women-folk do feel that they can take things easily for a while. DIGGING THINGS OUT Of course, all our little things find new places. But then, it isn’t bad fun digging them out and putting them back again is it? You come across your favourite pipe with an air of surprise and discovery, and it is rather jolly once more starting on the book you were half way through when the upheaval started. But it is a week or so of physical and spiritual travail, say what you will. A. C. Benson, in one of his books, says it is a good thing to be interrupted when one has planned a programme of work. It gives us a chance of testing our serenity, and even our spiritual standards. And so I feel it is with spring-cleaning. It is good discipline. But your wise fellow watches for the sign. He sees the fires of spring flash in his wife’s eyes over the teacups one morning. If he is wise, he’ll get busy—craftily busy that same evening when he returns from town, and have his treasured papers safely concealed.

And when the sight of a marvellously clean house bursts upon you, it really was worth while, wasn’t it?