Thursday, June 12, 2008

Achievements in Bachelortudeosity

In line with refusing to make my bed (as most of the time I sleep on my couch), I embarked on spring cleaning last week.

And one of the more annoying aspects of cleaning or keeping an abode clean is that if you technically want to keep your carpets clean, you should really take off your shoes.

This poses a problem for me in that I am always coming or going, and in Minnesota, particularly during winter, there is snow or slush, thus necessitating you take off your shoes before you traipse around the house, no matter how little time you must spend at home.

Thus, I employed an ingenious technique.

I would take all the junk mail I had and throw it on the floor. Any paper or print offs I had that I did not need, I would throw on the floor. This in essence made all the junk mail and paper my "area rug" and so if I needed to just make a call, grab some gear and head out once again, I would not be encumbered with taking off my shoes, but instead could just walk on the papers that had been laid down on the floor, conduct my business as needed, and then leave. Oh, sure, initially it was like a game of hopscotch where I would only have bits and pieces of paper leading to the fax, or leading to the computer, by which I would have to play a game of human frogger jumping from one piece of paper to the next to avoid touching the carpet, but after a couple weeks the floor was amply covered and I could gallivant about my house as I pleased without going through the torture of taking off my shoes.

Now, many of my friends critiqued me for this. They said my bachelor pad looked like I was trying to potty train a dog with all the papers on the ground. And "what happens if you have a date." To which I responded, "there's either her place or I'd much rather get a hotel room for $50 than spend the hours needed to clean." Which begat eyes rolling and some commentary about how I'll never find a girl and how hopeless I was, and girls don't like X-Box or a half polished off bottle of Jim Bean on the counter, why don't you conform and become a communist like the rest of us and do what society tells you and make your bed and go to church even though deep down inside women like the renegade bad ass, Tony Stark, Captain Jack Sparrow type blah blah blah...

But oh, how wrong they were.

For when I started my spring cleaning and pulled all the papers off the floor, the carpets were spotless. Beautiful. And not once this past year did I have to take off my shoes, thereby avoiding horrible psychological reminiscings of visiting grandma where they forced me to take off my shoes.

Oh, mock me if you must, but these economic bachelor like ways will certainly serve us bachelors well in the future. Besides, quite literally, girls will always prefer the guy who comes up with Captain Jack Sparrow-level-of-cleverness ideas like using junk mail as an area rug than some schmutz who always insists you take off your shoes before you walk on his precious little downtown condo's carpet.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

cleaning: Is that one of the reason you marry them?

( and promptly move into the garage to avoid her wrath .)

Anonymous said...

Dude - hire a cleaner. I've often thought about it myself since i figure that outsourcing cleaning duties would be well worth the expense.

Meanwhile, last weekend I went to the hardware store to get myself a new hose reel (the old one's had it), and thought i'd check out one of those 'auto-rewind' hose reels. I asked one of the attendants what they're like and the condescending little s#$t looked down on me like i'm a lazy bugger (which i am) and said that i shouldn't bother, and that it's a 5 minute job to wind it up manually anyway.

I should've thumped him.

Andrew L said...

I can see the headlines now:

Australian hose fight leaves teen injured; lazy assailant still at large

Captain Capitalism said...

HAR!!!

she said: said...

Now all that is needed is, you stop wearing clothes so you don't have to do laundry. Or - maybe you could just walk around in those plastic bags they stick over drycleaning. Chicks love that kind of thing.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me there are two solutions: 1) Do what you did; 2)Rework the laces of all your shoes so that they essentially become glorified slippers. Other than the shoes I use for running or playing basketball, I fixed the rest up so that I can put them on and take them off in no more than a couple seconds. I get the convenience of never having to bend over and tie a shoe while avoiding the unpleasant reactions of friends who come by and see a junkmail carpet protector.

Some hippies are useful when looking for cool ways to lace shoes and to realize the ease of not having to tie shoes, ever. http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/index.htm

Anonymous said...

The junk mail carpet solution was a solution that spontaneously appeared in my apartment without any planning on my part. Then again, I don't go out much, so my impact on my carpet is minimal anyway.

John A said...

I've been following this practice for decades. Some years ago, I had to move and my sisters volunteered to clean: I overheard the remark "It's messy, but clean."

Kasia said...

Chicks may dig the Jack Sparrows, but they settle down with the steady admirals (or lower ranks who will eventually probably become admirals). Who wants to marry a guy who's apt to be executed or run off with some other chick and leave you high and dry?

Face it: you want an economist chick who's just not a very good economist in matters of love.

Anonymous said...

Here problem solved.

they slip on and off, I almost never tie them, unless I suddenly have an urge to run, or end up on rouge terrain where I don't my shoes falling off.

But, shopping, work, gym, never tied.

Justin