"No Pane, No Gain"

By Jerry Zezima

I do windows. They’re a pain in the neck, especially if I stick my neck out the window to clean a pane, but spring has sprung and, even though I am no spring chicken, I have to spring into action to do the spring cleaning that gives me a window into my life as a suburban homeowner.

I am supposed to do the windows every spring, but if memory serves (I would like it to serve me a beer, which is what I need after doing the windows), I forgot to do them last year.

So my wife, Sue, wants me to do them now.

The problem with cleaning windows, which I can clearly see even if they are dirty, is mathematical.

We have 25 windows in our house, 11 upstairs and 14 downstairs. We also have two French doors, a storm door and a partridge in the pear tree.

There is an inside and an outside to each window, which makes 50 windows. And there are two panes per window.

Total: 100 windows.

It is logic like this that caused me to flunk not only math but logic.

But I got to work recently and was on a roll — of paper towels — when I finished the roll and had to start another one.

I also had a spray bottle of glass cleaner that kept taunting me by either: (a) being off, (b) being on stream, (c) being on spray or (d) being off again.

I wanted it to be on spray because the streaming service caused the cleaner to splash off the windows and into my eyes.

This defeated the whole purpose of the job because I couldn’t see out the windows anyway.

I could have used ammonia, but Sue said, “Ammonia smells.”

And if I needed a second bucket of the stuff, I would have come down with double ammonia.

Then I’d kick the bucket.

I played it safe — or so I thought — by using glass cleaner and paper towels on the windows in the family room.

Because they are old, not unlike the geezer who was cleaning them, I was able to unlatch only a couple of them, turn the panes inward and clean them on the outside without actually having to go outside.

The other two wouldn’t cooperate, despite my threats to smash them to bits with a ball-peen hammer. Undeterred, I got a stepladder and went outside so I could clean the top panes.

“Watch my flowers!” Sue admonished as I started to climb the ladder, which was on uneven ground and began to tilt.

As I regained my balance, a bee that was getting drunk on nectar in the flowers almost flew into my pants. Spritzing it with glass cleaner or whacking it with a roll of paper towels would have led to either an unimaginable sting or a horrific crash through a blood-streaked window.

I nervously ignored the s-o-bee, finished cleaning the outside windows and tried to get back in the house but couldn’t because Sue had locked the door.

I banged on it. No response. I called Sue’s cellphone. No answer. I was dialing the landline when she finally let me in.

“Why did you lock yourself out?” she said incredulously.

“I didn’t!” I cried. “You did!”

“Oh,” Sue said. “Sorry.”

But she did add that I was doing a good job on the windows.

“They look clean,” Sue said approvingly. “Still, we need new ones.”

“Do you know how much they cost?” I asked, telling her that I have been getting email ads for a national window company whose prices are so high that we would have to take out a second mortgage to afford them.

“In that case,” said Sue, “you better clean the rest of the windows.”

“At this rate,” I said, “I should be done by next spring.”

Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima