#794 People you don’t clean up for when they visit

Bless this mess

Toilet bowl stains are a fact of life. 

Big billowy dustballs are going to pool under the couch, crumbs will form communities on your kitchen counter, flyers and junk mail will pile by the door and, let’s just face it, once in a while your place will just stink.

But hey, it’s not you, it’s us.

We’re big, bulky animals who’ve been living in the world’s caves and jungles for a few hundred thousand years, and just recently we’ve tried moving into a prim and proper world of freshly waxed floors and central air conditioning. We fart, burp, and spread dirt across the floor. We sweat, shed skin, and shower dandruff all over the place.  Sure, we wear pants, read the newspaper, and brush our teeth, but beneath it all we’re still just hairy animals who scratch ourselves a lot.

Of course, when guests come visit, most of us try to distance ourselves from our roots.

We perform the Doorbell Dash and run a Swiffer over the floor, light a candle, and wipe down the bathroom. We trade bad breath for mouthwash and sweatpants for fresh pants. We ditch our cave-selves and freshen up our place for company. And hey, there’s nothing wrong with all that.

But how good does it feel when you just, you know, don’t? How good is it when friends visit and you don’t lift a finger? I say when your visitors don’t command a freshly-scrubbed toilet, they are your Cave Brothers and Sisters. They know you for what you are and they don’t judge you, because they have hairballs on their bathroom floors and piles of dirty shoes at their front doors, and they think that’s perfectly fine.

These are your closest family and your closest friends. People, if you visit somebody’s place and they don’t clean up for you, consider yourself lucky. It means you’ve got some great friends who are relaxed and comfortable being themselves around you. And that’s 100%

AWESOME!

No need to knock

Photos from: here and here 

25 thoughts to “#794 People you don’t clean up for when they visit”

  1. Generally, this is a really awesome thing to not have to clean-up because those REALLY good friends are visiting. But when that friend arrives and they are afraid to take their shoes off it might be time to pick up at least a bit.

  2. 2 mentions of “bathroom”, 2 “toilet”, couple more about stinking and farts, throw in a mouthwash reference… ya, I’m gonna go ahead and count this one towards my tally.

  3. I don’t really clean up for any visitors and my room is usually quite filthy (except for the rare occasion a member of the opposite sex might be over).
    But I guess this is a perk of being a student?

  4. All the dust comes from space I think. It seems like no matter how many times you dust off the furniture, another layer of dust keeps coming back.

  5. This is so true. I never worry about cleaning when my parents are stopping by. They know that my two little ones make the house chaotic and busy. The kids come first, house cleaning second!

  6. Ha! I tell my mother in law all the time that I don’t really clean for her very much anymore when she comes for a visit out of RESPECT for her, and that I know that she’s here to see US, to BE with US, not to see how clean we can be for the occasion but AREN’T really ever any other time.

    Anyways, it’s nice to to stress out about her visits. The other in-laws, on the other hand, send me into a frenetic two month plan of attack, with lists upon lists of things that need to be cleaned and done before they arrive, not wanting to do some things too early for fear of having to redo it again before they finally arrive because it’s come undone in the mean time, all the while knowing that no matter how much I clean, it will never be enough!

  7. When I read the title I thought you meant the friends who realise that it is the visitor who has to adapt to the host and not vice versa. And if the host (me) likes his house clean and in order, messy visitors are right on their way to becoming ex friends.

  8. Actually, to turn this around, awesome is a clean house that has been inspired by hosting new visitors. For days afterwards, I enjoy the clean of all that work, and look forward to the next visit.

    1. That happened to me. My BF and I hate cleaning so sometimes things pile up. We went all out cleaning for when my mom was visiting, and it was like we had a new place. We were floating on air for at least a week until it digressed back to it’s cluttered state. And my mom actually had the nerve to tell me it was messy, I almost slapped her.

  9. How funny, most of my friends know how messy i am so when the house is super duper clean, they know that someone special is coming over. Its even more obvious when they get into my car and its clean haha.

  10. Oh yes, yes, yes. They don’t clean up for me either. That’s friendship. (Reality is, I don’t clean up for myself, why should I clean up for them or anyone else.) But these are people, my wife doesn’t make me cleanup for.

  11. The thing is, my friends trash the place whether I clean it or not. Generally I just have to clean up after they’ve left..

  12. I know some people who do a major clean AFTER the company leaves; including carpets! I think this is rude, if I do say so myself.
    I know, I know, I’ve quoted, “Don’t judge another lest you’ve walked a mile in their moccassins,” but I think you’ll cut me some slack on this one!

    Hey Neil, I wonder, which way you went on the “Company’s coming for soup and salad from 3 bowls and MUGS” night~May 17th.,2011.
    Not crossing a boundary just curiously tippy-toeing!
    So Sweet!

  13. WOW REALLY, then again you may just be lazy and dont care about your health or the health of your friends and family.

  14. This reminds me about the difference between the good friends that you invite to a party at your house, vs. your “Cave Brothers and Sisters,” the friends who come over early — to help you clean your dustballs and get ready for the others. Awesome!

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