We try to keep a clean, pleasant home — not just for our own comfort but in the admittedly rare possibility that someone might voluntarily visit. As in, not a parole officer, religious proselytizer, or long-suffering neighbor who doesn’t understand that we can’t afford to paint the exterior.

Inside, though, we mop and vacuum and wash dishes, clothes and sheets. The dog gets an occasional bath.

Why, we even budget four candles annually for the living room coffee table — seasonally respective offerings designed to gently infuse the premises with aromas such as “April Bluebonnet” or “Fresh-Clipped Fairway” or “Carved Pumpkin” or “Mrs. Santa’s Cookies.”

But that’s about it for “extra effort.”

For example, the hand sanitizer you’d normally find in our guest bathroom is something we’ve ordered from an online site proffering wares from bankrupt dollar-store chains. “Possibly Soap,” I believe one of them is called. Another is “Big Jimmy’s Carnival of Lather,” and who can forget “Plague-Be-Gone”?

It wasn’t until an impending visit from Texas friends, though, that “Plague-Be-Gone” wouldn’t work for our guests — and that’s when I discovered a bonanza in cross-pollinated hand soap scents! It’s like the hand soap people said to the scented candle people: “We’ll see your conceptual smells and raise you evocative but ridiculous olfactory juxtapositions.”

It is possible, I’ve learned, to exit a restroom feeling mellowly confident that your palms and fingers are redolent of such soap fragrance combos as “Lemongrass Thundestorm,” “Cherry-Champagne Toast,” “Warm Vanilla Sugar” and “Seaside Pineapple.”

I long to come out of the john, drying my hands, and have someone wrinkle their nostrils, smile happily, and say, “Wow, I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly hungry for some toast, preferably whole wheat with cherries and champagne on it because who doesn’t put champagne on toast? With cherries, I mean.”

Well, this being me, I thought, “We MUST buy some of these for the guest bathroom.” Then another thought hit me: “What if we had a joke hand soap company?”

The idea would be that, yes, the soap would still smell delightful — but the names of the soap would be, ah, off-putting. In that comical spirit, I’m seeking investors for a start-up company working this concept, and here are the first hand soaps we’ll market:

1. Wow, That Ape Has Gum Disease!

2. Court-Order Exhumation

3. Cheese Foot

4. Sunrise Wino

5. Keith Richards’ Speedo