2) I had "friends" round for Thanksgiving a few years ago, and, as dinner wasn't ready until *nightmare* 10pm, my "guests" filled the drunken hours by pounding Champagne and carrying my computer around iChatting to their friends and family in the States, and in gormlessly holding it aloft onehandedly, "someone" put their thumb through the keyboard. I had it replaced. I don't think that counts as cleaning it.
3) Even so, when I'm using the computer, I always make sure I wash my hands before handling food. Except when I a) forget and b) am too lazy.
4) I have also never cleaned the screen.
5) When it came back from having the keyboard replaced, someone had cleaned the screen.
6) There are multiple jars of peanut butter in the cupboard. Some of them are supposed to be used exclusively for filling the Kong. The rest have NOT FOR DOGS written on them with permanent marker. Every so often, I get suspicious that someone (you know who you are) might have used the wrong jar, and - even worse - double dipped the knife. I then move the suspect jar onto the top shelf, where it sits with other half-jars of suspect pb, some of which have NOT FOR DOGS written on the lids. Then I buy a new jar, write NOT FOR DOGS, and the cycle begins again.
7) I am kind of a toilet fascist. I badger the lovely man endlessly about stuff to do with the toilet. Basically, I want it to be like no one has ever used the toilet. If he must insist on using the toilet, I want him to leave no indication that anyone was ever there. In the loo, I want the illusion that I live alone.
8) Once a week, I wash the whole loo - walls, skirting board, floor, door, sink, toilet and bath where applicable - with bleach. I feel guilty for refusing to reuse cloths - kitchen roll only please - but I cannot be doing with the way a cloth just moves dust and dog hair and schmutz around. If there is *urk* hair or any such thing, it is not clean. And I must know that the only cloths used on the toilet are not used on other stuff, and then they have to be washed on their own and putting a cloth through the wash on its own is hardly green, so... No.
9) If the toilets and sheets are clean, and my cupboards are tidy, I'm golden. I can tolerate, and I positively radiate, all other kinds of disorder and chaos. This trait is crazymaking for anyone who has ever had to live with me.
10) I don't mind washing up, but I quite dislike loading and unloading the dishwasher.
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There are a lot of words that just don't translate to American English. One of those is gormless. That and prat. That doesn't seem to be here either. England has so many great insults. It think that says something. Also feckless. I've always wondered if I could have feck. Do some people have feck and then others have none. Really, I could go on all day about this. Also, I can barely even read what I'm typing right now, my screen is that dirty. So I get it.
ReplyDeleteYes! Feckless must be one of those word fossils where the root is no longer in use, like reckless and uncouth.
ReplyDeleteGormless is a very specific word and I never really thought about it, but I think you're right about it not translating to American English. The closest I can come to a synonym is 'thick,' which I suppose also doesn't translate absolutely. 'Stupid' is too broad and doesn't really convey the benign, open-mouthed quality that gormless nails in one.
I know what you mean - I often think I should have been a linguist, or whatever you are when you study language.
I have a coworker who routinely dusts her keyboard and it drives me insane.
ReplyDeleteI am the same about toilets - they should look like no one ever used them.
But I hate scrubbing out our shower -- it has a sliding door so you have to yoga ninja wedge yourself in one side and scrub, then slide the door over and do the other side and I feel like I never do a good job and it frustrates me so ALSO I don't do it as often as I should...which is a shame since the drain is faulty and it gets dirty too easily. Boo. :(
I don't mind dishes that much but I'd rather be in the mood to Do Dishes than feel guilted into doing them because the sink being full bothers my OCD.
Also, re: gormless, prat, feckless, etc. - maybe I just read too much British children and young adults books growing up because those words make sense to this American. But then again, I had no idea the American way to spell "grey" was actually "gray" or that Americans don't put the "u" after the "o" in aaaanything until people started making fun of me.
ReplyDeleteI blame Tolkein and CS Lewis and True Confessions of Georgia Nicolson by Louise Rennison for leading me astray.
i clean my screen because i apparently expectorate all over it with a regularity that is as alarming as it is mysterious...after all, i *think* i cover my mouth, yet as it warms up, the screen presents a face covered entirely in phlegmy splotches, very jackson pollockesque.
ReplyDeletei wish mr. monkey could be convinced to pee sitting down, but i think it is something that the male psyche, no matter how mild-mannered the man, can handle.
happy new year, btw!
I have lived alone since the dawn of time and it is hard to imagine living with someone else's day to day obessesions and they would be hard put to live with my own. I like tidy. And I am a laundry fascist...I only wash socks with socks, kitchen towels with kitchen towels, jeans alone and of course underwear alone and so on ad infinitum...I was taking care of my goddaugther yesterday as I do every week and I had to bring up the dry laundry of the family from the laundry room. And to my utter horror as I opened the dryer door, there it was socks, pants, shirts, underwear, towels kitchen and bath! all having been in the laundry together...I felt faint and sick...
ReplyDeleteemmysuh - You were Brit-brainwashed! That's very sweet. You were like a little immigrant child learning a new language. I imagine you going to lunch at school and saying something like "Thank you ever so much for the scrummy bangers and mash," and being sent off to the ESL class.
ReplyDeletepc - Thanks and HNY to you as well! Re: the toilet thing, I think, unless you are a parent of a small child, you shouldn't expect to deal with anyone's bodily, er... output. Unless of course it's a sickness-induced thing where you could expect the same treatment when your turn comes, but you know what I mean.
Kelly - I don't know where to start with this. I guess humanity is a vividly embroidered tapestry.
oh, agreed. but as soon as i read what you wrote, i realised that mr. monkey has, saint-like, cleaned up the contents of my stomach from not just the toilet but also the walls, on more than one occasion, with not one word of complaint. i now feel ashamed.
ReplyDeleteAhh, that's true love!
ReplyDelete