Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 21, 1994                   TAG: 9410130008
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOUSEWORK CAN GET UGLY

I had thought we had seen the last of this old chestnut and that Ann was going to have letters that were uplifting - such as one from a woman who is married to a kleptomaniac who likes to borrow her underwear.

I've been around for years, and I don't have too much trouble believing a compulsive shoplifter who is also a cross-dresser.

I refuse to credit accounts of women doing their housework without a stitch on their bodies.

I do a lot of housework, and the closest I ever come to this kind of kinky behavior is the wearing of my red swimming trunks with the broken elastic and the little black lambs and wolves on them. I only do this in the summertime.

I've yet to see an Ann Landers letter from a Federal Express person who confronted a naked housekeeper upon delivering her parka from L.L. Bean.

Boy, that would so embarrassing you might have to get counseling. I know I wouldn't like to answer the door wearing my swimming trunks with the little wolves and lambs on them.

I can understand why delivery people don't write letters. It may be that he or she delivered a sweatsuit to a naked housewife with the rough dimensions of Roseanne Whatever-Her-Name-Is-Now and he/she blocked it out of his/her mind forever. To be fair, the sight of me in my swimming trunks might cause the same reaction.

There are some definite problems with cleaning house in the altogether. It seems to me it would be unpleasant to have the vacuum cleaner blowing air all over your nude body - especially if the odor of dog hair and dead spiders tends to give you a sick headache.

I trip over the vacuum-cleaner cord a whole lot and fall down sometimes - although not terminally yet.

The family couldn't bear the disgrace if I struck my head on something and the rescue squad found me lying nude beside my still-running Panasonic Jet-Flo 170 cannister job.

If I survived, I could go to the recycling place at the shopping center only if I wore a clever disguise.

Come on, Annie. Let's have some wholesome stuff about people about the size of Roseanne who force themselves into crowded elevators that then fall four floors.

We can all identify with that a lot better than we can with a twinky female who gets naked to do her ironing.