Breathing In & Out

As a college student I was a messy person and a lazy person (not much has changed!), so to avoid making a mess (and having to clean it up) I went to extreme measures. It was just too exhausting having to vacuum my carpeting. First, I had to find the vacuum (was it in the hamper or warming my bed?). Then I had to remove the fork that got stuck in it the last time (there is a logical explanation for this: I’m a man). Finally, I had to try to vacuum around all the TV dinner boxes that housed my “college” pet mouse (it had taken me hours of pigging out to create this architectural sanctuary). However, if I did run my pet’s house down (I didn’t have to huff and puff either—though the vacuum might grunt and snort, trying to suck those boxes up) I could easily rebuild it because boxes flowed from the kitchen trash can into the dining room and ended in the living room (if they were water instead of boxes, it would have been bucolic—as it was, it was just plain home). So many boxes: too much work to throw them out. Still, a man had to eat, didn’t he? Even if he didn’t want to waste energy to throw out the boxes.

It might have been easier if I could eat out. But I afford to eat out (at least not at restaurants). Therefore, I decided I had to eat in. To do so required more moves than a belly dancer on crack. To avoid crumbs falling anywhere, I’d lean over the sink when eating. My pet mouse, who followed me home one day from the toyshop (Joys Are Us—Sex Store) arrived at my sink precisely the same time I did. With his big ears he must have heard me coming. Every time I arrived he wanted to play. He’d take a flying run at the food, darting up my arm, over my face, back down my arm. He flew through the air with the greatest of ease (you’d think he was starving or something). Eventually, he'd catch the crumbs before they hit the sink Sometimes he even caught the food before it got to my mouth and I’d have to shake him off my finger! (It was my fault; I frightened him by moving my hand toward the garbage can. So, how could I punish him, he wasn’t trying to bite the hand that fed him? How stupid do you think I am?). This wasn’t the funny part. What happened was as I ran to the bathroom for toilet paper (so I didn’t ruin/dirty a towel—and blood does not come out!) my pet mouse must have drank half the bottle down before I got back. When I did get back to the sink to make sure my pet mouse wasn’t feeling guilty over his “accident’ he was dry humping the beer bottle. It reminded me of what I must look like rolling around with my rubber girlfriend on my rubber sheets (to avoid any kind of laundry). Laundry (my least favorite chore) comes from the Latin roots, Lawn-dry—meaning, “Water your lawn, not your clothes.”

Since I didn’t have a lawn (I was a renter!), I came up with creative solutions to avoid the laundry. I’d wear my jeans 28 times between washings (I was eco before ology). My solution was that I’d let my jeans breath (as opposed to strangling them in the washer/dry) by letting the old air out (is that like farting?) and allowing new air in by opening my window and fanning (to save money I used one of those Chinese hand fans). Guess, they smelled a little ripe, since one neighbor asked if I’d recently visited a farm (and my pants had just breathed out and in: is that like a pregnant pause, breathing in and out). Nonetheless, I didn’t smell them. Not that I wanted to as this was also the same timeframe when I decided I could skip bathing with soap, because water alone had many cleaning properties: it wasn’t dirt). Even if my clothes stunk, as a college student (and a man) people expected that of me. I did anything to avoid laundry, so shirts without “man stink” could be worn again and again, turned inside out (I was ahead of my time) so that both sides would get dirty.

When I finally had to do laundry, I’d prepare my clothes by saying, “It’s gonna be a rough ride” or “It’s gonna get hotter than hell in here” and I’d always end my speech with; “Take it like a man!”