Spit, polish and scream

18 March 2012 - 02:16 By Paige Nick
Million miles from home
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There are some things adults over a certain age should never do naked.

Paige Nick: A million miles from home
Paige Nick: A million miles from home
Image: Lifestyle Magazine

Jumping on a trampoline, for one. Cartwheels are another. After a certain point, gravity just isn't on our side anymore. And if it's safety we're talking about, juggling with fire and chopping wood in the nude also come to mind as general no nos.

So I was interested to read about a local guy who has started the first-ever Natural Cleaning Co, which offers its customers a naked cleaning service. For somewhere in the region of R200 a pop, you can have a man or woman come into your home and do the cleaning wearing nothing but a duster and a can of Mr Min. You can literally have someone buff your silverware, in the buff. They also offer naked lawyers, naked accountants, naked computer geeks and naked handymen. Insert boom chicka-wa-wa music here.

I briefly tried to picture it happening in my own home. But while I love my Cynthia, and I could never live without her, the thought of her doing the cleaning naked scares the pants off of me. Same goes for the guy who does my taxes. Imagining him naked makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a knitting needle. Although I'm sure the Natural Cleaning Co's hiring criteria must be very different to the ones I had in mind when hiring Cynthia and my number-cruncher.

A cautionary word of warning to MrNaked Cleaning Co Guy though: I did some research and it turns out that cleaning naked is a dangerous business. Dozens of cases of "penile injuries from vacuum cleaners" are reported by hospitals and in medical journals around the world every year.

On the whole, there seem to be three basic reasons men report getting their man-parts caught in a vacuum cleaner.

Some say it happens by accident. Some are ever so briefly under the misperception that the suction power of a vacuum cleaner will extend their length. Until they try it once, and quickly discover that the only thing it extends is their pain and embarrassment, all the way to the emergency room. And lastly, some do it for pleasure, under the misguided assumption that only all three Kardashian sisters combined would have more sucking power.

According to an article in The European Urology Journal (just some light toilet reading), out of 48 reported injuries caused by that activity that supposedly makes you go blind, an enormous 36 of them were caused by vacuum cleaners.

Besides being very eina, it must be a pretty awkward business, getting your ding dong stuck up a whatsit. How the hell do you explain it to the doctors on call?

One 60-year-old man said he was changing the plug on his Hoover Dustette in the nude (didn't want to get grease on his pants, perhaps) while his wife was out shopping, when the vacuum cleaner "turned itself on" (a cruel twist of fate, since I suspect his plan was for it to turn him on) and that's how his thingy got caught. I'll spare you the gory details. Needless to say, his wife will be doing the repairs around the house from now on.

A 49-year-old man claims he was vacuuming his friend's staircase in a loose-fitting dressing gown (as one does). When, with the intention of switching the machine off, he leaned across it and at that very moment his dressing gown happened to come untied and the Suck-O-Matic 6000 did its thing. Sucks to be him.

So good luck to the naked cleaning company guy. I think it's a great idea. As long as he has really good medical coverage, there's no reason why he shouldn't clean up.

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