Today, we’re going to learn how to weave our friend Martha Stewart into a wastebasket.

It’s a Good Thing.

If only there were more hours in our days to contemplate the beiges and browns inspired by eggs from her hen house full of Araucana hens, our lives would be truly enriched.

What are Araucana hens, anyway?

Whatever they are, their eggs must be the loveliest things to drop out of a chicken, and we should be ashamed for failing to educate ourselves about them.

Still, it’s never too late to live like Martha. Perhaps we should begin by collecting some of her Giant Copper Cookie Cutters. According to Martha herself, now that summer is here, she is pleased to introduce two new cookie cutters to the collection, “a charming Sea Horse and Nautilus to make fun summer treats.” She likes to decorate cookies “using icing in blues and greens for the spirit of the sea.” Well, of course she does! If we were well-bred enough to afford a home like hers in upstate New York, we would remember to celebrate the sea in cookie frosting, too.

We would also be well-versed in the fine and essential art of wreath-making. That’s right. Wreath-making. What were our high school art and history teachers thinking when they failed to include Great American Wreaths in the curriculum? At the very least, public schools might require a mini-course in Christmas wreath-making — not in constructing that dumb-dumb pine cone wreath with silver glitter and glue, no. Clutch the pearls!

A truly Great American Wreath must include fresh fruit wrapped in genuine gold or silver foil. Never mind that fruit rots. Gracious people know that genuine gold foil is worth disposing with perishable food items, and it just wouldn’t be a Great American Christmas without it.

Whether it be planning “that special day” (your wedding), or offering “inspired but simple ideas for your home,” Martha Stewart’s philosophy of homemaking not only revives June Cleaverism for the ’90s — it takes a not-so-subtle form of snobbery to an extreme. The Web is full of sites poking fun at her, but seriously, part-time, full-time and future-homemakers ought to beware.

In using Martha Stewart to weave your Great American Wastebasket, there are three important aspects of her genre to keep in mind.

First, Martha deserves to be a part of everyone’s Great American Wastebasket because she makes women feel guilty for not having the time or money to do things nobody should have the time or money to do.

Second, not since the launch of Ralph Lauren’s ’80s ad campaign have Americans been deluded by such an astonishingly white bread vision of “the good life.”

Third, her style is blander than oatmeal. If you need a major chain of stores to dictate your personal tastes, forget her drab line of K-Mart kitsch. Go buy a Furio lamp at Target. Go to a flea market, for heaven’s sake. But whatever you do, don’t imagine that you can buy into Martha’s fantasy of genteel living at K-Mart.

Martha Stewart will make a fine wastebasket — for under your kitchen sink, or next to your toilet.

Poop on Martha. It’s a Good Thing.

Tom Owings is a graduate student in English from Ames. He is the opinion editor of the Daily.