Are you a pig? Are your carpets so filthy that they're breeding heretofore undiscovered forms of life? Are you, in fact and indeed, a slob? C'mon. You can admit it. There's nothing wrong with living like a wildebeast if you so choose. But, if it's gotten so bad that even you feel that your lifestyle is ... well ... more viral than a third grade elementary school class, take some tips from me, an inveterate slob. You too can make your house have the appearance of being clean.
That's what it's about for us slobs -- appearance. Some things have to really be clean to look clean, but most junk you can just hide. I like to call it the kid cleaning method. If people are coming over, and you don't have any time to pick up all the disgusting junk draped all over everything, just take a tip from your younger inner slob. Grab giant handfuls of the crap and just shove it in a closet. All of it. We're slobs, what do we care if socks are mixed with used 40 oz bottles of malt liquor. You can sort it all out later. Or just abandon that closet. They say compost is good. And don't think the only hidey hole you have is your closet. Ovens, dishwashers, behind furniture, under the bed anything with empty space can have something shoved in it. I once stashed all my army men bath toys, a wind up fish, and a rubber ducky in the toilet tank. Tip: flush first. Don't learn that one the hard way. Damn Archimedes and his principles.
There is something weird about a basket. For some reason if people see a basket they assume organization. As we slobs know, just because something is in a box doesn't mean that it's neatly sorted out. If you want to create good impressions without doing anything other than spending a little money, baskets are the way to go. Just make sure not to throw your remote controls on the bottom. You'll never find them again, you'll buy new ones, you'll throw them on the bottom of some other basket, and the cycle will continue ad infinitum. I actually think I have twenty remote controls rolling around my joint just because of this. The remote control is a slob necessity. If I'm so lazy that I clean my toilet with Alka Seltzer (works by the way), I am totally not getting up to change a channel.
Now for the actual work part. I know. It sucks, but some things have to actually be cleaned to be clean. You can only Fabreeze your underwear so many times before it just gets gross. Eventually, you will have to do your laundry. The easy way to hose out your delicates is to take them out on a date. Yeah, you heard me, take those bitches to a bar. There are laundry bars in most cities now with decent facilities. Why not get a little buzz on while your socks spin away. Even if you have a washing machine and a dryer at your place, YOU'RE STILL A SLOB. You will leave your clothes in the washing machine until they get so moldy they'd make Alexander Flemming blush. You will use your dryer as a drawer. This is inevitable. Chunk out the change and get your drunk on. Who knows, maybe your laundry will even get you some lovin'.
At some point, you're going to have to get some of the stench out of your place -- especially before you bring home your laundromat fling. The easiest way to remove heinous stink is to open a window -- or a lot of windows -- or, in my case, take out a wall. You can also buy low maintenance plants. Don't buy ferns. Slobs don't need ferns. You could also try cleaning something for real. Bleach knocks out lots of odors, but then your house smells like bleach and your lungs burn. The best way for a slob to clean stuff is simply buy gunking the cleaning products on whatever surface you want to not reek of rotten meat death, and letting them sit. Allowing them time to work lets you just wipe the surface down. If you slob-up and let them dry, just dump more cleaner stuff on it and wipe that off.
The last tip that I have for impressing others with your new found cleanliness is sure fire. Get 'em drunk. Really drunk. Not so drunk that they'll get a birds eye view of the inside of your toilet, but drunk enough that they don't notice the crap shoved under your couch. Tunnel vision is a slob's best friend. Create it and you'll automatically be about 80% cleaner.
Slobs are awesome people. We're definitely not superficial. We're much more disease resistant. We can reuse a dish until it adapts a section that is constantly ketchup. Sometimes, however, it's nice to be a bit more inoffensive. If people are scared to eat or drink or pee in our homes, we seriously limit our social repertoire. Just spending a few minutes right before guests arrive wiping off stuff and chucking stuff out of sight will help your average slob stay a slob -- in the closet.
