Slobs the world over gather at the Summer solstice to worship me, their queen.
I almost never curse or raise my voice. It’s really quite difficult to rile me. People who are riled find this utterly intolerable. There is something extremely provoking about being calm when others are riled. But I don’t want to be riled, so I just assume they will go have a chat with the mirror, and get back to me when they are ready to discuss whatever it is.
More than one roommate has accused me of being “always right.” It really only seems that way, because I try to keep my mouth shut when I don’t know anything about the topic at hand. Or try to ask an intelligent question. And if I’m wrong, I try to say so the moment I realize it. So they don’t even get time to catch on and be right about me being wrong.
With “normal” roommate situations, I tend to be “the invisible guest”. Inane conversation is something I am required to have at work; I’m not going to want it at home. Now, if you happen to be someone I already knew beforehand… then we’re likely to be having deep conversations on subjects such as “favorite Civilization version, and why”.
One of my roommates freaked out because I dared mark up which of the knobs belonged to which of the gas burners: the little pictures were completely erased, I made little stickers with good cellotape (the kind that doesn’t leave a mark when you remove it) and itty bitty pieces of paper, and placed them beside each knob. I really should have saved the email she sent to Dani and me detailing the ways in which our behavior was unacceptable, but apparently I didn’t.
That sounds like one of my brothers. I still haven’t killed him, but I’ll admit there have been times I’ve been tempted to strangle him a little.
I seem to randomly shift from laser focused to flakey and scattered, without warning. I often need lots of stimulation and crave a lot of change, so life at my house is rarely dull.
I am annoyingly smart enough to see through your antics, and ungraciously blunt enough to call you out for them.
I am easily very open, honest and direct, with a sincerity that borders on unsettling.
I’m totally unsociable the first 30 minutes in the morning. Don’t except any reactions to be being talked to other than angry grunts before I had my second cup of coffee and breakfast. Don’t DARE talking to me when I read my newspaper, goddammit! After that short time, I’m the most patient and talkable person you’ll meet, but NOT before. Drove my former housemate who’s also my best friend (still is) crazy, who drove ME crazy by always chatting me up at the breakfast table.
And oh yes, I’m a slob too, but fortunately my house chore discipline is better when living in company.
I have two housekeeping settings: “Ah, fuck it,” and “CLEAN IT ALL NOW.” My roommates never know which one it will be when I wake up on a Saturday morning. And if I want cleaning, I want it on my schedule. I get up on a weekend morning, make coffee, have a cup, and commence doing the things I had planned. My roommate of over ten years has to sit and watch tv/do nothing for at least two hours before she is in any frame of mind to help me. By then, I have martyred myself for the cause and cleaned the entire kitchen, leaving her only the dishes.
I justify all this internally by reminding myself that many of the more luxurious items in our house are there because I paid for them and graciously allowed them to become public domain. In fact, the house itself belongs to me and me only, so the least my roommates could do is help me out a little when I’m already charging them far less rent than a real landlord would.
Definitely farting. I swear I’ve heard my man friend cut one about twice in the twelve years we’ve been together, and he gets the butt-trumpet serenade every morning. And throughout the day.
I’m also an all or none cleaner. I hate cleaning, and I won’t do the dishes every day. The floor can get a little gritty and windows never get cleaned…until that day when I wake up and think “GOD DAMMIT, this place is unlivable. Either it gets SPOTLESS, TODAY, or I’m going to burn it to the ground.” My obsessive, sanctimonious attitude when I’m on a cleaning bender is probably intolerable. Plus I have to blast music while I clean. Preferably 70’s disco.
It would have to the general untidiness of everything compounded by three large dogs (two permanent, one foster) and a cat. Cleaning has never been high on my list of fun things to do and I do the bare minimum to keep the house from slipping into squalor.
I guess it’s that I care too much and work too hard. I’ve always been a perfectionist, and my friends are always telling me I’m a workaholic. So, do I get the job?
Piles of stuff everywhere. And I know what is in those piles.
Not “hoarding” bad. My floor is clean and I don’t keep crap. I just have a lot of books, papers, doo-dads here and there. Like on the little shelf in front of my computer monitor in front of me, I have;
Diabetes blood test kit, Calculator, phone, Cheater glasses, pen, pad of post-it notes, ear buds for my phone (wfh, sometimes need them to hear people), book tabs, several post-it notes of work related numbers, tube of cortisone cream, tonight’s lottery tickets, antacids, mouse for my computer while I work on the company computer.
That’s a lot in a space about 2’ wide and 8" deep. I have an ottoman on my right covered with Pathfinder books, a table on my left with the TV remote, spray bottle for misbehaving cats, several books I’m reading or will read next. Also functions as a foot rest when watching TV.
I suspect that that’s true of everyone – certainly is of me, lifelong mostly alone-liver, and naturally one of the laziest and messiest wretches on the planet.
My roommate nests. Anywhere she might sit for any length of time, she has a pile of stuff on the table next to her. Sometimes she has to go get another tray table to hold her drink because she’s used up all the available space on the end table placed there specifically for drink-holding. It drives me insane.
I have a tendency to get something, use it, and leave it wherever I was finished with it. But at least I go around once a week and pick up after myself. It takes an Act of Congress or a visiting parent to make Roomie do so.
Probably my organizational tendencies. I’m not the type who must have everything clean or put away, necessarily… I’m actually quite fine with things being on the coffee table or the kitchen counters or even the floor as long as they are things that belong there. There’s a kitchen cabinet that holds plates and you shouldn’t put plates anywhere else. There’s a part of the pantry for canned good, and you don’t put cans somewhere else just because there was a sale and you ran out of room. The cans go where the cans go, period. The refrigerator has a drawer for cheese and one for vegetables and you don’t put vegetables with the cheese, damnit!
Part of this is a habit developed out of poor eyesight. For much of my life (and much of any given day) I cannot look at a cabinet of ingredients and simply see what I want. If I have to search the entire kitchen for every ingredient on my list, I’ll give up, and figure out what I can make out of the ingredients I have found already. But part of this habit is just wanting to know where things belong.
I’m ridiculously organized and I like everything in it’s place and clutter drives me nuts.
However dust and dirt don’t bug me in the least. I will spray the top of the range (it’s one of those all black coil-less ones) because it’s easy, but that’s really about it.