Ouch [grumble, grumble...]

You know how every once in a while -- or more often than you ever dreamed, if you have two dogs -- you have to put that wand attachment on the sweeper hose, only the wand isn't magic, so you have to do all the work yourself? And you know how you have to use it along all the baseboards in the house to remove dust and bits of pet fluff so that your mother won't start crying that she doesn't know where she went wrong because she didn't raise you in a barn, whenever she comes to visit?

Well, today, I got my housecleaning freak on and went all over the downstairs with my non-magic wand, all hunched over and dragging the sweeper along, bumpity-bump behind me and now my back hurts as if I'd just carried Arnold Schwartzenegger around like a great big papoose all afternoon and all I have to say is that there is perfect sense in the slogan on a bumper sticker I read the other day:

HOUSE CLEANING WON'T KILL YOU,

BUT WHY RUN THE RISK?

Indeed.