As I write this article late at night, I think to myself that I’m probably not the most dedicated person.

In most instances, actually, I’m pretty lazy. I tend to let dirty clothes pile up until I have no clean clothes left to wear, and the same can be said for my dishes, or any other object around the apartment which needs to be maintained consistently. I say this partly as an admission of sloth, and partly because these tendencies have got me in trouble with my roommates on occasion. The way I see it, I can’t be the only one with this problem. Lots of guys tend to let things get dirty, what’s wrong with that?

I mean, in most cases, dirty guys like us don’t do these things on purpose. I want to clean up, but the dishwasher is, like, all the way over there, and I’m tired, and COPS is on, and…

You know what? Maybe these things could easily be taken care of, and the apartment would be perfectly clean, keeping my roommates and myself happy.

What happens two weeks from now, however, when we’ve run out of dishes and clean clothes again? What then? I suppose I should just start doing them before I run out of them, huh? Maybe as soon as I’m done with my dishes I should just clean them right away. Perpetual cleanliness, is that what we’re dealing with here? Is such a thing even possible?

In all seriousness, I do understand. Sometimes classes get busy, especially now with the end of semester approaching scarily fast. Sometimes the dishes pile up as you scramble to finish class work. However, even the busiest schedules have lulls. Next time you have an entire night to yourself, no homework, no extracurricular things in the way, look around you dorm room, you apartment, your what-have-you.

Are there dishes or old food lying around? Uh huh. How about some pieces of clothing strewn about the floor? Yep. Has it been so long since you vacuumed that the floor dust can now be considered topsoil? I thought so.

So get rid of that fruit salad that’s been in the fridge since Vietnam, pull the boxers off of the table lamp, and pull out the old Hoover vacuum. Not only will your roommates be happier, you’ll be happier for wearing clothes that smell nice, for eating food off dishes that don’t have their own ecosystem and for being able to walk around the apartment without getting thousands of little pieces of who knows what on your socks.

Oh, and use a coaster or you’ll leave a ring on the coffee table.