No way that cleanliness is next to manliness

OK, guys, let’s nip this smugness in the Zud.

That’s Zud, as in the stuff you’re supposed to use to scrub out the kitchen sink but which you probably don’t know about because most of you think doing the dishes means just doing the dishes.

Let’s stop all that crowing, OK? One study — one — says you’re doing more housework than your wives admit, and now you think you’re Hazel.

This kind of research, by the way, is why so many people make fun of studies.

The Journal of Marriage and Family published the results of two sociology professors, Yun-Suk Lee at the University of Seoul, Korea, and Linda Waite at the University of Chicago, who surveyed 265 married couples with children to find out who does the housework.

Here’s what this intrepid sleuthing revealed: There’s a disagreement between the sexes.

Shocking.

“You only do 33 percent of the housework,” wives said.

“Uh-uh,” said the husbands, “we do 42 percent.”

Quick question: Who talks like this? Who did these sociologists survey — a bunch of actuaries?

In most marriages, the wives don’t bother with fractions or percentages. They just push the hair from their sweaty brows and groan, “I do everything. Ev. Ree. Thing.” Their husbands mumble something about folding tea towels and how they take out the trash and this is the thanks they get.

As it turns out, in this most recent study, the wives and husbands were both wrong.

Husbands do 39 percent of the housework, the researchers said.

Wow. A whole 39 percent.

Somehow, newspapers interpret this to mean that men should be getting way more credit than they are currently enjoying from their wives who still do a whopping 61 percent of the housework.

“Guys get bad rap in chore wars,” trumpeted the New York Daily News. They also called the study a “startling report.”

This is not bringing out the best in some men.

Oh, the bragging. The boasting. The braying. Not to mention all that see-ing, as in See, I told you. See, you never give us any credit. See, this is why we should have more sex.

OK, I didn’t actually hear any of the guys say that last thing, but you know that’s what they’re thinking.

Meanwhile, women have a few questions about this so-called study. What, for example, constitutes housework?

Men tend to claim that mowing the yard, watering the yard and fertilizing the yard constitute housework. No, that’s so-the-neighbors-can-see-you work, which means you’re getting all kinds of crowd credit while we’re up to our anonymous elbows in toilet water.

You want credit? Drop and give us 20, which is the required number of circular swishes you have to make with a toilet brush.

Toilet brush: That’s the thing in the bathroom shaped like an exclamation mark, as in, “Wow! So that’s what that’s for!”

Here’s another issue for us women: Define “clean.”

Merely loading the dishwasher, for example, does not a clean kitchen make. That is just the tippy-toes of that monster we call kitchen duty.

Counters must be scrubbed, leftovers Zip-Lock’d, stove tops cleared of pots and pans that must be scrubbed with steel pads stored under the sink. This is also where you’ll find that Zud I mentioned that will render your stainless-steel sink so shiny you can see your chins in it.

Now, that is clean. And, no, we don’t care if it looked just fine to you before.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that all guys are slugs when it comes to housekeeping. Some men are quite the mighty maids, and we always know who they are because they describe in excruciating detail their every bent elbow for the cause.

Laundry is their rock of Sisyphus. Dust balls are the size of tumbleweeds. And all that cooking! Why, why must children eat?

Oh, they do go on.

For that, I give them credit.