How To Even…Clean Your House

by Michael Gushue & CL Bledsoe

You come home from work, put your key in the lock, but the door won’t open. You check the number on the door, look around and determine that this is, in fact, your home. But your key doesn’t seem to be working. You put your ear to the door. Inside, you can hear noise. So you knock. Three rats open the door. They have some complaints about your house-keeping of late, so they changed the locks.

“That’s crazy,” you say. “Rats can’t talk.”

“No,” one says, “but we can smell.”

Hey, we get it. You work all day, come home at night, and the carpet fairies haven’t come to straighten things up, which means you’re stuck in this pigsty. There’s nothing else for it; you’re going to have to clean up this mess yourself or sleep outside. But where to start?

Burning Your House or Apartment Building to the Ground

This is going to be the first thing that occurs to you. Torch the place. It’s that quick and simple. All your dirty dishes, unwashed clothes, newspapers, dirty carpets, et cetera, could have their souls purged in a holy, cleansing fire as you watch with the serene detachment of the insane. You might even be able to collect some insurance money. But this is a false start. At best, you’ll end up in a cell that’s pretty easy to keep clean. Overall…