Let me ask you something: Should one be offended if one's husband's comes home from work one day and gently suggests it might be time to outsource the housecleaning?

And by gently, I mean that he said, "Maybe it's time we called the housecleaning service."

I am good at many things. I make excellent peanut butter fudge. I have many, many silly voices which are endlessly entertaining if you are (1) a child or (2) me. I can stay up later than any human being I know. I also waste time like nobody's business. I defy you to beat me on that last attribute.

But I will be the first to admit that the clutter has gotten away from me. It's not dirt that's the problem (we have clean dishes, people! I'm not a monster!); it's just the newspapers and the magazines and the toys and the bags and the packaging and the socks. I have a gum drawer -- that's right, that's what I said -- wherein I keep my Extra wintergreen-flavored "crack" (as my husband calls it), and where I also keep the empty wrappers of said crack, because I apparently cannot walk 10 feet to the garbage can after I've had a fix.

It's not really that I'm a pack rat; just more of a I'll-just-do-that-later kind of rat. I have developed two modes when it comes to straightening up the house: "stalling" and "company's coming crisis." The latter is when everything gets chucked into a particular room or closet -- what I like to call "hiding the bodies." Company's coming crisis mode is not pretty, people. You don't want to be here for that. In fact, you probably wouldn't be -- it's probably your impending arrival that has persuaded me to finally take a bulldozer to my living room, raking up every Happy Meal toy and Weeble in sight. (But please come and visit me, just the same. We'd love to have you!)

It might be different, if, say, someone were to tell me that I couldn't dunk a basketball. There are obvious physical reasons why I cannot -- though I dearly would love it if I could, if for no other reason than to get all the free sweatpants that go along with being a member of a basketball team. If there's one thing a stay-at-home mom needs, it's more sweatpants. But the cleaning house thing, well ... if laziness is a valid handicap, I suppose that works in my defense, but I've got nothing otherwise. Presumably, decluttering is part of my job description. And if that's true, I'm really going to score poorly come performance review day.

So I'll give the husband this one. Besides, having my house cleaned by someone else just gives me more time to shop at Target, come home, and leave the bags strewn about the kitchen floor.