Making a Clean Sweep

I remember when cleaning my room used to be a horrible chore only forced upon me when I was being punished or when relatives were coming to visit. As closely related as those two seemed sometimes, either way I was made to go to my room and pseudo-clean. (i.e.-throw everything in an organized heap in my closet and/or under my bed, depending on the extent of my slobbery). Now, although cleaning is not one of my favorite things to do, it is an attractive alternative to homework. My desire to clean is directly proportional to the amount of homework I should be doing when the urge to clean strikes. It’s amazing what I’ll do when I have a calc assignment due the next day.

I have no concept of ‘keeping a room clean’. My system allows the room to descend to maximum mess and then cleaning it all up. With the zero maintenance I perform, the room will soon reach a new low. A few weeks ago, my room hit this stage. I’m a pretty tolerant person, but the level my room sank to was unbearable even to me. The hair on our floor could have been made into a toupee that would have been the envy of the entire Hair Club for men. Dust piled in plush layers under the beds. Dirty dishes piled like abstract art filled our sink. Random possessions were scattered everywhere. And my roommate and I had homework looming in our assignment notebooks. It was time to clean.

We started on the dishes first, not realizing that there is such a thing as ‘too much dish soap’. It was like that episode of every sitcom where someone puts too much soap in the washing machine. Or maybe that was just The Brady Bunch. Our sink isn’t very big and apparently bubbles are repelled by the drain. Our dishes ended up very clean, and one of the shower stalls ended up full of soapsuds we had transported there in a pitcher.

Next we needed to shave our carpet, but we settled for one of those dustbuster on a stick things that we borrowed from our neighbors. It did pick up the hair and even gave us some more airborne dirt when we tried to empty it, thanks to the spring-loaded bag. We found enough dust to make a sweater out of, if you’re into weird stuff like that. We aren’t. It went in the trash.

We moved furniture. We organized. We even cleaned that gross place under the sink that most people try to hide with a garbage can. Three hours later, our room was clean. We admired our handiwork, then went into another quad to hang out so as not to disturb our newly created utopia of cleanliness.

Sadly, this was three weeks ago. Eventually we had to come back from the other quad and actually live in our room. The room is once again returning to the depths of messiness. I’m not worried. Finals week is coming up, and I feel the urge to clean coming over me just thinking about it.