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Packin’ up

We’re off for a few days to deposit Nick at college.  When he was a freshman, he and I did the traditional father-son knife fight.  When he was a sophomore, we bundled him into his new dorm with terrifying efficiency, and I vowed that this year, “we’re going to drop off Nick and drive back in one day, slowing down to 30 mph as we approach his dorm and throwing him out of the passenger side with a sleeping bag as he does a drop-and-roll.” Wish us luck!  Except that we’re not going to approach his dorm, because he’s not living in one.  Yes, that’s right, now that he’s a junior, Nick is living in an apartment for the first time.  Feel free to stop by and offer him apartment-cleaning tips at any point during the school year!  I know he’ll appreciate it.

People often ask if I give Nick any fatherly advice when we drop him off at college.  Well, actually no they don’t ask that.  But I do need a segue to the folk tale with which I will leave you all until we return.

“Nick,” I told him two years ago, “whatever else you do in college, watch out for right-wing attack dogs.  You mustn’t take them home, not even if they follow you down the street and beg for food.  Remember the story of what happened to the ‘liberal’ journalist in the PC wars:  one day in 1991 he came across a right-wing attack dog who was nosing around the dumpsters in the back of the offices of the Dartmouth Review, barking about all this crazy deconstruction and radical feminism that leftist professors were foisting on unsuspecting American undergraduates.  ‘Gee, I hate deconstruction and radical feminism too,’ thought the liberal journalist.  ‘This right-wing attack dog doesn’t seem so bad.’ So he brought the dog home, gave him a big, ten-thousand-word spread in the Atlantic Monthly, a regular spot on a half-hour cable opinion show, and a plate of leftover steak scraps.  ‘I’ll call him “Fluffy,”’ said the liberal journalist.  But imagine the journalist’s surprise a decade later, when his dog Fluffy began barking that liberal journalists were ‘traitors’ and ‘soft on terrorists who want to destroy America’!  ‘But I fed you and gave you a home,’ said the liberal journalist, mortally wounded.  ‘I took care of you.  I even got your picture on the cover of that national newsmagazine.’

“‘Yes, you did all that,’ replied Fluffy.  ‘But what did you expect?  You knew I was a right-wing attack dog.’”

Nick listened very carefully.  He’s a good kid.

Posted by on 08/14 at 06:00 AM

  1. You’re gonna need funky horns and backup singers if you wanna turn an old Al Wilson song into a hit all over again.  smile

    Posted by Gil  on  08/14  at  08:50 AM

  2. Feel free to stop by and offer him apartment-cleaning tips at any point during the school year!

    Nick, in case you drop by to read the comments on your dad’s blog at 3 a.m. after the bars have closed, here’s a cleaning tip:

    Don’t waste your time and effort cleaning until after you move out. Then read your lease and check whether or not you have to clean in order to get your deposit back. This will leave you more time to *ahem* study, and it will help your immune system by giving your antibodies something to work with.

    captcha word: passed, as in I did it and I passed. Barely.

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  09:22 AM

  3. These are indeed times for caution for across today’s back alleys from right-wing attack dogs lurk liberal Friday-blogged kittens. Bringing to terror what the attack dogs bring to truth.

    From a practical apartment after two years of dorm life perspective, kittens are much easier to care for leaving more time for not cleaning when not studying.

    Posted by black dog barking  on  08/14  at  11:05 AM

  4. May I teach your fable of the right wing attack dog and the liberal journalist as a re-make of the classic “The Scorpion and the Frog” by Aesop?

    Posted by Steve  on  08/14  at  11:09 AM

  5. The very thought of me offering cleaning tips would bring a round of deep and sarcastic guffaws from those who know (and clean up after) me. Safe travels! Best of luck in the school year, Nick.

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  12:53 PM

  6. Nick:
    When I was in school at the good ol’ Univ. of Maryland, during the Triassic Period, we had a motto about cleaning our residences. “Cleaning? We don’t do no stinking cleaning here”. I highly recommend that philosophy as it saves an inordinate amount of time for the important stuff like studying (wink-wink).

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  01:10 PM

  7. Cleaning is what happens when you have a paper to write and have run out of all other excuses for not doing so. Doing a PhD is a good way to make sure that your home is at least intermittently clean.

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  02:16 PM

  8. Does this apartment involve roommates and other sordid, oops, assorted issues????  That changes everything.  It gets down to who buys the toilet paper, and who left the mess in the sink, and the worst of all “ who ate my Ben and Jerry’s.” Forget the right wing attack doggy, the enemy lurks within, for the worst of the kind are greedy former hippies.  Of course it makes for great “material” (captcha word) for the mid-life novel or academic blog.

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  03:04 PM

  9. Cleaning is what happens when you have a paper to write and have run out of all other excuses for not doing so. Doing a PhD is a good way to make sure that your home is at least intermittently clean.

    Bah.  The dust bunnies in my home office achieved Night of the Lepus proportions, yet I never turned to housecleaning in the cold, grey predawn hours of dissertation writing… avoidance.  (Is there a single-word term for that?  Or should I go with DWA?) No, that’s what Mr. Gore invented the Intertubes for.  Or, one can play with a mechanical pencil for hours.  And there’s always lurid romance fiction (group the words as you wish).  Perhaps that’s why my dissertation was such a slender pamphlet; I never became desperate enough to dust.

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  03:54 PM

  10. My advice is simple and easy to follow:  If you don’t want to be evicted, then don’t invite all your excitable friends over to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas after the last final of fall semester—especially when the last day of finals falls on Fridays, and especially when Fridays feature “two for ones” at the bar just down the street.

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  05:04 PM

  11. I have a friend (okay, “acquaintance") whose entire Psychology practice is limited to counseling ABDs.  No kidding.  He drives a Porsche.  I just sent him an email requesting data on his patients’ domestic hygiene.  I’ll follow up here if he sheds any light on this critical issue.

    As an undergrad Nick, I cleverly found someone else to clean my apartment for me (thanks Eva, wherever you are now!).  I recommend this approach which leaves you with oodles more time to engage in very entertaining ways to avoid studying.  You can even get him or her to bring the beer.

    captcha: basis “Basis Technology provides software for multilingual text processing and information retrieval”

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  05:23 PM

  12. My only cleaning advice: it’s much more fun if it involves a tricky shotput into a dumpster, preferably from a three story balcony. Bonus fun points if the first person to miss has to clean up the craplosion. Double super bonus fun points if he/she has to do it in his/her underwear, in January, in Laramie.

    We found beer helps as well.

    Posted by Trout  on  08/14  at  08:35 PM

  13. Cleaning tip: If the landlord knocks, throw record covers on all the carpet stains.

    Except that there are no record covers anymore and even cd covers (themselves too small to disguise even a spilled half-glass of red wine) are going out in fvour of usb devices that can shelter behind a piece of popcorn.  God, I feel old.

    History, as the captcha gleefully points out.

    Posted by Chris B  on  08/14  at  08:46 PM

  14. Nick - The only housekeeping things you need to be good about are:  clear and navigable floors; no hair(s) in any sinks, tubs, or drains; and clean linens on the bed for when your, ah, study buddies come over to, ah, hit the books.

    Other clutter is SOP and no one minds it much - certainly not other students.

    Posted by  on  08/14  at  10:05 PM

  15. OK, you all are not helping.  I was thinking more along the lines of advising Nick which disinfectant and grout cleaner to use on bathroom tile, for instance.  Because I hear those products have gotten a great deal better since I was 20, when my roommates and I milled our own lye-based soap for bathroom tile cleaning.

    And Steve, what’s a “scorpion”?

    Posted by Michael  on  08/15  at  12:44 AM

  16. Two quotes from Quentin Crsip spring to mind:

    “There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.”

    and

    “However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police.”

    Posted by saltydog  on  08/15  at  07:39 AM

  17. Using the terms “grout cleaner” and “disinfectant” when talking about a college student just doesn’t make any sense!

    Posted by  on  08/15  at  08:47 AM

  18. Oh, you wanted advice on cleaning products.  Here’s mine:  Toothpaste repairs even pretty good-sized punctures in drywall.

    Posted by  on  08/15  at  09:39 AM

  19. Because I hear those products have gotten a great deal better since I was 20, when my roommates and I milled our own lye-based soap for bathroom tile cleaning.

    At least you had lye.  Back in my day, we didn’t even have matter.  Which, um, made… cleaning… difficult…

    Anyway, Nick, keep lots of baking soda on hand.  Arm & Hammer used to provide instructions on the box for cleaning use.  It’s good for some spills, too.  And it works well on removing marks from walls.  Use it as an abrasive cleaner in place of Comet, which is usually overkill (literally).

    What?  I eschewed cleaning while a graduate student.

    Posted by  on  08/15  at  10:45 AM

  20. Scorpions?  Here they are. They rocked you like a hurricane.

    http://www.the-scorpions.com/english/

    Posted by  on  08/15  at  11:37 AM

  21. Cleaning tips: When the sink is full, steal more dishes from the dining hall. When your place is infested with fruit flies, invest in OFF. When the tub develops a black grime that is too slippery to stand on, get flip-flops. When the landlord swings by to tell you if you don’t clear the year’s worth of trash bags out of the alley, wear gloves: there will be rats.

    Posted by  on  08/16  at  01:23 AM

  22. if you don’t clear the year’s worth of trash bags out of the alley...

    you will be cited by the health board & evicted

    captcha: another.

    Posted by  on  08/16  at  01:37 AM

  23. Pat is correct - flip-flops are a very handy tool for dealing with situations which might otherwise involve cleaning, which makes them enough of a cleaning tool for me.  Clean and navigable floors - not really necessary.  But keeping hair out of sinks and bathtubs really is crucial, showering while standing in 6 inches of dirty water is not much fun…

    Posted by  on  08/16  at  12:42 PM

  24. I second Charles’s comment about using toothpaste for filling holes in the wall.  There isn’t enough toothpaste in the world to fill the holes in the walls caused by the pucks your hockey player roomates shot through the drywall when they practiced face-offs in your bedroom.  Which is why I always skip Michael’s hockey entries.

    Capcha: “home” as in “away from.”

    Posted by  on  08/16  at  01:12 PM

  25. To go along with mds‘s suggestion regarding baking soda, also buy a gallon of cheap vinegar and cheap ammonia.  No need to splurge on all these technically advanced and stupendously expensive housecleaning materials that are extremely hazardous to the environment.  If you need to bleach something to disinfect it use lemon or lime juice, or better yet, get someone you know at a local pool to scam you some soda ash---Oxyclean’s secret and overpriced main ingredient. 

    The Scorpians are looking old, but then so are one of my favs, the Stranglers (keeping the UK bands starting with and S theme).  Aah stories we need never tell about the band and one of my dearest friends.  The last time i saw her a couple of years ago, she was still an amazingly beautiful woman for her mid 50’s; i have known her now for 40 years, beyond and through the depths of punk’s self torturing.
    http://www.stranglers.net/

    Posted by  on  08/16  at  09:21 PM

  26. Nick:

    Best advice ever given to anyone going to college, in my opinion: Be sure to give your liver one day off a week.

    Posted by  on  08/18  at  11:58 AM

  27. Cleaning tip: get one of those oversized dustpan-with-a-long-handle things they sell at Home Depot (and other fine establishments) for picking up leaves and stuff.  As needed - for example, when a parent or a potential sex partner is planning a visit - sweep the debris from the floors into the dustpan. Transfer to garbage can (did I mention, also buy a garbage can & line it with garbage bags?).  Much better than those pitiful little dustpans that require so much sweeping and dumping tiny amounts of debris at a time.  If the floors are clean, everything looks better.  Also, if there’s mold growing in the toilet or shower, Clorox is your friend.

    Posted by  on  08/18  at  06:27 PM

  28. Thanks for helpful information you catch up us with your instructional explanation.

    Posted by izmir halı yıkama  on  07/30  at  06:00 AM

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