Clean Sweep

Sometimes the apple falls really, really far from the tree. In the case of my mom and me, I think I landed in a different time zone. Not in all areas, mind you, mostly in regard to pesky life-maintenance tasks like cleaning. You see, she is super-duper clean. At her North Dallas home, there is no "five-second rule" for food: I could knead bread on the floor for five minutes and the CDC would approve. At my apartment, clothes are piled two feet deep over a chair in my bedroom, and I think I lost a kitten under the papers on my desk.

As it turns out, my mom is more normal than I am. Most American women spend loads of time cleaning, especially on Saturdays. Between the laundry, dishes and vacuuming, a whole morning is gone. And Procter & Gamble is outraged by this. Well, maybe not exactly outraged, but savvy enough to see room for a new product that combines several tools into one gadget and claims to save cleaning time. To promote this Mr. Clean Magic Reach, P&G is going around the country telling women to Take Back Your Saturday Morning. Now, to me, taking back Saturday should involve handing off the mop to the husband, telling the kids to play outside and cleaning nothing except your plate at brunch, but what they're offering is actually a pretty good deal this Saturday at ZaSpa in Hotel ZaZa.

Come and get a free mini-manicure, take a "clutter clinic" from North Texas' Clutter Queen Jennifer Humes, get pointers on quick exercises from a celebrity trainer and learn tips from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The first 50 women get a gift bag that includes the Magic Reach, an L.L. Bean tote and the Clutter Queen's new DVD. The P&G people have a point: Cleaning the bathroom is a grody job (especially if you are living with a man so hirsute, he might as well be part monkey), so maybe this "save time, enjoy your Saturday" thing is a smart idea. At the very least, it sure beats mopping.