Saturday, November 18, 2006

I Cleaned My Bedroom!


And I should be duly proud of that achievement.

I am, too.

I am not, however, currently enjoying its new cleanliness, as I am lurking down in a remote corner of The Girlfriend's basement. I have again taken control of her computer, and am preparing to use it to spread my insidious propaganda.

Or, in layman's terms, I'm going to write about how proud I am of myself for cleaning my room. It boils down to the same thing in the end, really, as I don't know where I put all my propaganda. Probably in a drawer somewhere.

This is an (a) historic occasion, much like my first post here on the Blog, but with more cat hairs involved. The process, which I carried out dressed in only the finest boxer shorts, took a little over three hours and enlisted the help of no fewer than two vacuum cleaners, a bottle of spray cleaner, some boxes and plastic bags, Lucky Piddle Patties (oh, them cats!) and half a cup of pilfered coffee.

I want you, time-wasters, to consider my cat Sprocket. At a guess, I'd say he weighs about 12 pounds, and he's short-haired. Very unassuming. But beneath his goofy veneer lies an extremely efficient fur-dispersal engine, capable of covering a 12x12 room to a depth of six inches in the time it takes me to pour a glass of Cherry Coke. There's a good chance that my Cherry Coke will play host to at least one Sprocket hair by the time he's done, too.

So, upon moving my junk off the floor, where it had been safely and conveniently stored for weeks, I vacuumed the drifts of cat hair out, and put the stuff into closets, on shelves, or into the garbage. I held a running dialog with myself that went something like this:

"Wow. Stupid cat."
"What the heck is this?"
"Heeeey, this isn't mine..."
"Betcha THIS is broken now."
"Eeew."
And of course, the ever-popular, "So that's where this went!"

Have you ever done or created something of such life-affirming worth that you couldn't help but stand there like a moron and beam radiant joy out of your face at all around you? Well, that's what I did.

I stood in the middle of my room, like some retarded sculptor's idea of the human condition, and looked at the carpet. It turns out that it's NOT the same color as Sprocket, but a sort of a coffee-with-way-too-much-cream color. I beamed dementedly at it.

I gazed upon my desk, which had its collection of cat prints and sody pop goo banished to the four corners of the earth by the learned application of spray cleaner and paypa towel. I surreptitiously scratched myself in discreet regions with glee.

Next, my eyeballs directed theyselves upon the empty chair which had recently held a month's worth of clean laundry. I was so happy about this that I fell down.

From my new vantage point, I noted that all the crud and dust and cat debris had been vacuumed from my power strips with the utmost of love and care, and I flopped about like a drugged sunfish, so happy was I.

And then I left to come visit The Girlfriend. But in the back of my mind, I will know that my room is clean, and it will make me happy.


14 comments:

Raymond Betancourt said...

Careful FooDaddy, if Martha Stewart should read this post with all that talk of cleaning and bedrooms, she might get aroused and try to woo you with her matronly charms.

Paul FooDaddy Brand said...

Dude. No. Is she married? Bet she's got kids by now if she is. You know; what with all them hand-knitted prophylactics. Ineffective, but charming.

Paul FooDaddy Brand said...

Oh, and yes, that picture is an after shot. Reasonably good panorama, too! If you look close enough at the lamp on my desk, you'll see where Photoshop had some trouble.

Jack W. Regan said...

I tend to agree with "an" historical/historic. But deep down in the fastidious depths of my grammar-sense, I can't help but feel a little hypocritical when I use it, because I don't always with other words. The argument could be made that you only use "an" when dealing with h words of more than one syllable and where the stress is not on the first. However, I don't usually say "an" hotel.

In order to make h words sound decent with "an," one must drop the h altogether in speech, or pronunciation becomes forced and somewhat pretentious.

An 'istorical
A historical

The difference in usage is mainly between British and American pronunciations. The Brits are much more likely to use "an" and leave off the h. Americans, the other. Of course, one could argue that Americans are unlearned fat people who would play their video games all day if they didn't have to go out for another BigMac, but...I didn't say that.

To be honest, I haven't yet completely decided how I feel about this, although I am leaning toward the "an," simply because I think it sounds better. From what I've read, you can get away with either (I pronounce this as I-ther, by the way), but consistency is going to be the key.

Jack W. Regan said...

Oh, and congratulations on cleaning your room, Foo. I'se so proud! (I said that last in the Louis Armstrong voice.)

Anonymous said...

Hey, you Foo, glad to hear you actually cleaned up your nice little room. Perhaps I will make you some yummy pumpkin bread. (notice I said perhaps.)

Jack W. Regan said...

PW, that's like refusing to accept terms of surrender that were never offered. And furthermore, if my room was any cleaner, it would...well, it'd be cleaner, that's what!

Jack W. Regan said...

No, no, no. I'm saying that pumpkin bread was never offered to you, so threatening to refuse it means very little. Sheesh. Must be all that mountain air.

Jack W. Regan said...

Oh, and pumpkin bread (or similar foodstuffs) can be a negative thing. Remember the...interesting objects we'd receive during the pastoral pounding?

(For the unchurched out there, a pastoral pounding is not a congregational abuse of the pastor, at least, it's not intended to be. It's where each member of the congregation brings a food item to help the pastor feed his family, in situations where the church is too poor-or cheap-to pay the man an actual salary.)

Paul FooDaddy Brand said...

Mmmm... Pastoral pumpkin pound cake with salary...salad...celery...

Stupid Woman Driver said...

i am proud of you, foo, im going to have to take many pics of this event and document them, perhaps even call the press, nay! goveror stipid/craig hart! he will be most impressed. and more than likely scared seeing as this is a sign of the rapture. repent! repent i say to you all!!!

Jack W. Regan said...

Just because it's happening doesn't make it rational. It just illustrates the stupidity or cowardice of the person/country falling for it. And, besides, doing something one is not worried about is not the same as taking no action at all. For instance, if I do not offer you pumpkin bread, but I do offer you celery, but you call me up and regretfully inform me that you cannot accept the pumpkin bread, you have at least acknowledged that something was offered. In the original example, nothing at all was offered.

In your international scenario, Mr. Il actually did something, although we don't seem to be sure exactly what.

EXAMPLE 1: "Give me your lunch money or I'm not going to do anything."

EXAMPLE 2: "Give me your lunch money or I'm going to kill this ant."

Neither option is particularly troublesome, but at least in the second, the bully has the foresight to offer a consequence, lame as it may be.

Anonymous said...

JP, if you are wanting some pumpkin bread, bake yourself a loaf. I didn't offer you any so why all the fuss? Are you jealous because I offered some to the Foo and not you? That is just to bad. Foo lives close to us and you don't. By the time I got the bread to your it would be gross. So quit your whining and go make your own.

Paul FooDaddy Brand said...

Yes. I'd like to see someone FedEx a loafa bread to someone. That'd be funny. "Can you sign for this? It's squishy."
"Yes, I most certainly can! Wow. Where's my nice cold milk? This smells heavenly!"

And then the dancing would ensue.

Here's my plan to fix the pumkinbread uproar: Stupid Blogga doesn't have anything to worry about, really, as he stands a good chance of being present while the bread is being baked. This proximity will allow him to swipe little bits of dough and crust while Wifey's not lookin'. This will indulge both his lust for baked goods and his desire to be sneaky.

And then the chuckling will ensue.

Nickel Weasel, they gots Bob Evans (Bo Bevans) restaurants in Idaho, right? They serve pumpkin bread this time-a year, and it is delightful. While you cram it into your maw, you may wish to emit the occasional chuckle yourself. I highly endorse that action.

Ahh. Is there any problem Bob Evans can't solve? We ought to take Kim Jong to one of 'em; it'd calm him right down. Good ol' Bob. Or Bo.