Squalor

Okay, I'm not winning housekeeper of the year, but I've gotten a lot better in my divorced life. Much of my marriage could be summarized, 'No you clean it.' And 'Let's see how you like it if it doesn't get done.'

Childish sentiments on both sides, with results described variously as 'shameful,' 'disgusting,' and 'I'm going to throw up.'



Of course, I had affected a certain squalor in my bedroom as a teen. Newspapers, beer and soda cans, used condoms, these things tended to pile up. See also overflowing ashtrays filled with Players Navy Cut butts.

In retrospect, I can't imagine how I ever got a girlfriend with a room like that. Or kept one after trying to put my moves on her in that groty lair.



Fast forward to today and Em wants to have her friends over to play. Not with her room like this. I tell her this, and she says it's too much to do. So I say do it in phases. Start with getting all the laundry off her floor, which she does at the expense of being able to actually walk in or out of her room.