My roommate Seth may be moving soon. If this happens, we'd need a new guy to move in, which means I would get a new opponent in the eternal game of chicken that goes on in the apartments of single men. I'm talking, of course, about housekeeping.
In pretty much every place I've ever lived since moving out of my parents' house, my roommates and I will basically pretend we don't notice the mounting filthiness of our dwelling place, hoping someone else will take care of it. Dirty toilet? Just flush it a second time. Pile of dust bunnies in the hall? You can miss them if you take big steps. Greenish ring around the bathtub? It's still three weeks until the next cleaning check. Dirty dishes in the sink from four days ago? They, uh, need more time to soak.
In all of these areas I hold my own, foot on the gas pedal even as the cliff (cockroaches? silver fish? the plague?) rapidly approaches. Someone else usually ends up reaching a bathroom breaking point and gives it a good scrub before I do, and was pleasantly surprised about a week ago to see that Seth had cleaned out the microwave. (As far as the bathroom goes, however, I do take more than my fair share of turns in buying toilet paper--mainly because I've had many roommates who buy cheap stuff. And that's one area of my life where I refuse to scrimp. Even on my mission, when I'd gladly buy a loaf of bread for 9 pence or the 7p cans of beans, even the UHT boxed milk, I would spend extra to get the two-ply TP.)
Before I move on, I would like to get it on the record that despite my apathy towards keeping my home clean and tidy, it's never resulted in an infestation. And there are lots of vermin in NYC. We did have an ant problem in one of my Provo apartments, but it wasn't connected to (though perhaps exacerbated by) our relative squalor.
The one aspect of tidying which seems to always make me chicken out is taking out the trash. I hold out hope that my roommates will adopt the "you top it off, you drop it off" philosophy, but I'm the guy who usually buckles down and takes the garbage and recycling down to the street. Not sure why, really, it's just the way that it goes. I have people coming over for dinner on Sunday, so I'll probably have to do some sweeping and mopping. Or find a way to get dark carpet installed in the next 48 hours.
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2 comments:
EW Jeff, Gross!
Have to agree w/ Julie here. I may have a mild case of pseudo-OCD--which can raise its own set of interpersonal issues--but it at least keeps my bathroom and other floors clean, the sink empty, the dishes clean, and the trash emptied.
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