Achievements in Bachelortudeosity

In line with refusing to make my bed (as most of the time I sleep on my couch), I embarked on spring cleaning last week.

And one of the more annoying aspects of cleaning or keeping an abode clean is that if you technically want to keep your carpets clean, you should really take off your shoes.

This poses a problem for me in that I am always coming or going, and in Minnesota, particularly during winter, there is snow or slush, thus necessitating you take off your shoes before you traipse around the house, no matter how little time you must spend at home.

Thus, I employed an ingenious technique.

I would take all the junk mail I had and throw it on the floor. Any paper or print offs I had that I did not need, I would throw on the floor. This in essence made all the junk mail and paper my "area rug" and so if I needed to just make a call, grab some gear and head out once again, I would not be encumbered with taking off my shoes, but instead could just walk on the papers that had been laid down on the floor, conduct my business as needed, and then leave. Oh, sure, initially it was like a game of hopscotch where I would only have bits and pieces of paper leading to the fax, or leading to the computer, by which I would have to play a game of human frogger jumping from one piece of paper to the next to avoid touching the carpet, but after a couple weeks the floor was amply covered and I could gallivant about my house as I pleased without going through the torture of taking off my shoes.

Now, many of my friends critiqued me for this. They said my bachelor pad looked like I was trying to potty train a dog with all the papers on the ground. And "what happens if you have a date." To which I responded, "there's either her place or I'd much rather get a hotel room for $50 than spend the hours needed to clean." Which begat eyes rolling and some commentary about how I'll never find a girl and how hopeless I was, and girls don't like X-Box or a half polished off bottle of Jim Bean on the counter, why don't you conform and become a communist like the rest of us and do what society tells you and make your bed and go to church even though deep down inside women like the renegade bad ass, Tony Stark, Captain Jack Sparrow type blah blah blah...

But oh, how wrong they were.

For when I started my spring cleaning and pulled all the papers off the floor, the carpets were spotless. Beautiful. And not once this past year did I have to take off my shoes, thereby avoiding horrible psychological reminiscings of visiting grandma where they forced me to take off my shoes.

Oh, mock me if you must, but these economic bachelor like ways will certainly serve us bachelors well in the future. Besides, quite literally, girls will always prefer the guy who comes up with Captain Jack Sparrow-level-of-cleverness ideas like using junk mail as an area rug than some schmutz who always insists you take off your shoes before you walk on his precious little downtown condo's carpet.