But, it is spring and the time-honored ritual has come to our domestic den. Spring is in the air and spring-cleaning is on the agenda. I, on the other hand, had other plans, which did not include soap and water. So much for my plans. A husband’s plan is always subject to his wife’s rescheduling.

Every year I asked the same question. How in the world does spring get so dirty? And, more important, why do I have to clean it? I didn’t mess it up.

I believe Mother Nature ought to clean her own spring and not push this responsibility onto husbands like me who have better things to do with their time.

One year I got confused and cleaned my spring in the fall, which screwed up my whole winter wondering what I would do when spring actually arrived and it was already cleaned.

Spring-cleaning would not be so bad if I could use my definition of clean rather than my wife’s. One man’s clean is his wife’s “when are you going to clean that?”

At the least, it would be helpful if spring-cleaning only came on leap year, which would give me an opportunity to hop out of the way before my good wife could spring into action.

In our house, the annual spring cleaning focuses on the garage. When my wife gets it into her head to clean the garage, I get it into my head to get clean out of her way. In the scheme of things, how important is a clean garage anyway? It’s not as if Martha Stewart is going to make a surprise visit.

As a veteran husband (with the scars to prove it), I have discovered one thing in my house. Behold, a greater than Martha Stewart lives at my lodgings.

My philosophy is simply, a dirty garage is a happy garage. It just doesn’t make my wife happy and when she’s not happy neither am I — so I am willing to live with an unhappy garage. These are the compromises enabling husbands to survive generation after generation. At least, enabling this husband to survive spring-cleaning one more year.