Good Clean Dirt

I know there is an advert on telly right now asking viewers if they have, but I for one have never spent time wondering where the bits of food washed off plates by my dishwasher go to.

There could be a few reasons for this, I reckon.

One might be for instance the fact that Donegal County Council has been turning our water off every night for about a month now, so our dishwasher – which was usually only ever turned on once a day (and usually after 6pm at night) – doesn’t be switched on much any more.

However a more likely scenario is the fact that I actually have a life.

I mean, come on folks, anybody who sits around wondering where the food gets washed away to really needs to get out more.

What the advert did get me thinking of however, is how these cleaning companies are trying harder and harder to scare the byjasus out of us.

For instance, you know the ones where they show us all the places that germs live.

Yep, even after we clean things those germs are still there.

Unless of course we clean with the stuff they are selling.

And even that will only be for a while.

After all, these things usually come in a new and improved version at some point.

“Now Cleanupia doesn’t just clean and kill 99% of all germs, because new and improved Cleanupia cleans, kills 99% of all germs – and smells nicer too!”

You know the kind of stuff.

I watched three or four of these adverts recently and began to wonder how the human species ever managed to survive this long.

It’s not that I’m against cleaning or anything it’s just that, well I kinda grew up in an era where we had such a thing as ‘good clean dirt.’

To be honest, I never really understood that concept enough to be able to actually define it now in words, but I’m guessing it might have been discovered by the same person who invented the five-second rule.

Some people I know are totally shocked by the concept of the five-second rule.

I have always found it kinda ironic that these are usually the type of people who have floors so clean ‘you could eat your dinner off them.’

Personally, I have to admit that I have adapted the five-second rule to six, ten, heck maybe even twenty seconds depending on how badly I wanted the piece of unfortunately dropped item on the floor/ground.

Oh yeah – and I’m still around today folks to write about it.

You see in some ways I reckon that since our ancestors lived in caves for years upon years and lived in mud cabins and huts of all kinds, our bodies are used to living around a certain level of dirt and germs and bugs and stuff.

It’s why we come built in with an immune system and wee filtery hair things in our nostrils and well, common sense enough not to extend the five-second rule even to five-seconds if your chocolate éclair has fallen into fresh cow dung.

If we are to follow the example of the adverts however, our lives would be just one endless circular motion of cleaning – wax on, wax off, over and over and over and over and over…well you get the picture.

To me that seems a bit excessive. Excessive compulsive even. And excessive compulsive anything does not seem like a good thing in my book.

Let’s face it folks we don’t want to be cleaning and wiping everything to such a state that we drive ourselves to the point of extinction by the teeniest of germs – which is why I’m thinking of starting a campaign online for the return of ‘good clean dirt.’

I’m hoping it goes viral…