You know you’re a slob when a teenager remarks on it. No, scratch that: you know you’re more than just a slob; you’re an inspiration to slobs everywhere. That’s the position that my son, Clyde, found himself in the other day when his sister, Clementine, came into his room. No stranger to the concept of filth herself, it is significant that Clementine had this to say about the state of her brother’s room: “Dude. If someone came into this house and saw only this room, they’d think the house was abandoned.” And the sad thing is that she was right. While her room typically looks like the aftermath of some tragic Starbucks Train vs. Mascara Truck Accident (Interior Design students would probably call it “Early Modern Latte”), his room just looks like a flop.
Is it a boy/girl thing? Because while her room is trashed, it is not full (at least not completely) of trash. There are valuable things sticking out of the flotsam and jetsam of her room’s landscape, like diamonds poking up from the coal. (Or rather Apple products sticking up from the bras. Because, yeah, while coal might not be as valuable as diamonds, it still has its uses. Just like ipods vs. bras. Oh, shut up. All the ladies here know what I’m talking about.) Anyway, Clyde’s room has none of that. No diamonds or ipods. (And I’m pretty sure no bras, either. Not so sure about the coal, though.)
His room is just pure trash. It’s knee high in Mountain Dew bottles and Burger King wrappers. There’s so much trash, in fact, you can barely see the trash can, which might explain why it is completely empty. Which is what is confusing to me. Clyde’s room is easy. You could clean it with a snow shovel, because there is absolutely nothing in there that he cares about. You could drop a match in the middle of it (please don’t) and he would not shed a single tear. (Sure, he would lose all of his clothes, but that wouldn’t be his problem. It would be mine.) So why doesn’t he just clean it?
I know why Clementine doesn’t clean her room—it’s the same reason I procrastinate cleaning off my counters. If I could just sweep everything into the trash I would, but I don’t want to take the chance of sweeping last year’s W-2’s in there along with last week’s oil change coupons. My messes are more hoarderly. In fact, I will admit that one of the main reasons I don’t like to watch Hoarders is the number of times I find myself wincing when they throw out something really cool. “No way, please tell me you’re not really going to throw out that awesome box full of Barbie heads?”
Clyde’s room? Most of his trash could just go straight into the recycling bin.
I’d think that he was being strangely sentimental about everything (“And here’s the first two liters of Mountain Dew I drank…this week”) except for the fact that its not like he’s actually displaying his detritus. He’s not like some freshman in college who is so proud of the liquor he has consumed that he displays the empty bottles in his dorm window. No, he’s not showing his Mountain Dew prowess off—he’s just living in it. Who knows? Maybe he just wants to make sure he makes his mark.
After all, archeologists say that one of the most valuable sites they can come across are ancient rubbish tips, because the information you can glean from seeing what a culture throws away is just as valuable—maybe more so—than the information you get from seeing what they choose to hold dear.
Maybe Clyde just wants to make sure that he has his bases covered either way.