STRANGER THAN FICTION: FROM MARTHA STEWART TO SLOB: A TRANSFORMATION

The same post-marital brain disorder that makes me think my bathrobe is sexy also makes me fear Tilex.

I'm still trying to determine what happened.

One day I was a young, working wife trying to cook good meals, keep a tidy house and make her man the happiest husband alive. Now I'm Peg from "Married With Children," only not as thin or well dressed.

The Other Half and I are approaching our second anniversary, and our early days of dating are a vague memory. As well as I can recall, it was just me and my trusty can of Pledge, dancing about the apartment in preparation for Mr. Half's visits. If my home was dust-free and smelled of cleaning products, I reasoned, he'd be mine for sure.

Amazingly, he never once came in and said, "What's that great smell, Honey? And look, I can see myself in the floor!"

Guess that's just the guys in TV commercials.

But I managed to connive -- I mean CONVINCE -- Mr. Half that I wore fresh makeup 24 hours a day and could achieve inner peace by standing over a hot stove. I wore control-top pantyhose and sucked my stomach in for two years. He married me.

(Insert maniacal laugh here.)

The whole weekly cleaning thing lasted about six months. Then it became biweekly. Then it became monthly.

Now I manage to get into the bathroom with some Tilex just before the mildew evolves into a higher life form.

Part of the problem may be a subconscious rebellion against my mother, The Mean Cleaning Machine. Twice a week she turned into a bizarre creature that wore a bandana, cut-off jeans and a T-shirt. She blasted "oldies" on the stereo as she streaked from room to room, yelling, "DON'T STEP ON THAT FLOOR!"

Unlike my mother, it takes about a week for me to psyche myself into a big cleaning day -- usually planned for a Saturday and then put off until Sunday. I pull on my traditional bathrobe and fuzzy blue slippers, then drag out my bucket of cleaning supplies and a bunch of ripped up cotton-briefs-turned-dustrags.

"Wet" cleaning is the worst. That's stuff like scrubbing out the bathtub and using a toothbrush to get gunk out of the shower door tracks. The only good part is the little cleaning-day high you get from mixing mildew remover, pine cleaner and Comet in the same room.

Vacuuming is the best. You get immediate gratification from seeing the vacuum lines in the carpet, even if you don't bother to move the coffee table like Mom always did.

In a rare fit of guilt over watching me clean while he watches the football/baseball/basketball/lacrosse/badminton (pick one) game on television, The Other Half occasionally will volunteer to help. He always wants to run the vacuum cleaner, which, as we've discussed, is the only easy and rewarding cleaning job.

After I wrestle the vacuum out of his hands, he usually decides to dust something, which is the second most easy and rewarding cleaning job. Having spent years determining which cleaning tasks must be done to show the most benefit with the least work, I usually dust really obvious things -- like the television screen or the dresser top.

Sunday morning I actually discovered The Other Half dusting the tops of the doors. No, I'm not kidding.

Anyway, the cleaning is done for this week. I've washed my bathrobe and fuzzy blue slippers and am wearing them as I write.

Hmmmmm. Makes me wonder what life will be like on my THIRD anniversary.

~Heidi Nieland is a former Southeast Missourian staff writer now living in Pensacola, Fla.