Rejoice, my many readers! Or, if we’re being honest about my readership, rejoice, my parents’ Facebook friends! I finally cleaned my room!
To begin, I assessed the situation. My room was messy, not dirty – an important distinction. The best way to understand it is to consider one of my greatest fears: raccoons. I often hear noises at night, which are probably the wind or my neighbors getting laid, but my first thought always seems to be that there is a raccoon living in my room and he’s pacing back and forth trying to decide which part of me to eat first. Now imagine that you, too, fear the presence of one of nature’s bandits in your room. If you can reasonably say the raccoon may be hiding in the pile on your floor, then your room is messy. If you can reasonably say there is enough food in that pile to have kept the raccoon satiated until now, then your room is dirty. Either way, there’s a raccoon in your room and you’re screwed. Say goodbye to your limbs. You knew this day would come.
Naturally, step two in the Great Room Cleaning of 2015 was flipping over every surface in my room to ensure the absence of the aforementioned raccoon. Things were now messier than when I began. I grabbed the pile of unfolded clothes from my floor and threw them onto my bed to begin folding. I immediately fell asleep on said pile of clothes. This was problematic because A) valuable time had been lost and B) a raccoon easily could have snuck in while I slumbered, so I had to check all the possible hiding spots once again.
When I finished folding the clothes, I moved on to the next greatest offender: receipts. My room looked like it was tee-peed by some really rich guys who were too pretentious to use toilet paper so they bought a bunch of stuff just to throw the receipts all over my belongings. This would be kind of a dick move but also pretty awesome. I will probably do that to someone soon. Leave negative comments on this article at your own risk.
At least half of the receipts were for Chinese take-out. I am passionate about Chinese food the way Tom Cruise was passionate about Katie Holmes when he ruined Oprah’s couch. When I was in third grade I had to do this project where I invented a whole new world, and I made a land based on Chinese take-out. All of the people lived in giant upside-down take-out box houses and catapulted to and fro on chopsticks. The world was called Chineseateria (a combo of “Chinese food” and “cafeteria”) which, in retrospect, was maybe not the point of the assignment and definitely offensive. If I had to do it all over again I’d title it, “Me Land,” and the law would be whatever I pleased. All the residents would have to carry chapstick with them at all times in case I needed some, kind of like how fraternities make their pledges carry around cigarettes and lighters. I believe it was William Shakespeare who once said, “All the world’s a frat, and all the men and women merely my pledges.”
I got pretty sidetracked at this point considering whether I might be Willy Shakes reincarnate. I knocked over an open bottle of nail polish and cried, “Out, damned spot!” which, if you didn’t know, is a Shakespeare reference. My parents’ Facebook friends are a well-read bunch, so I expect that one to go over well.
The other receipts were mostly from CVS, which means they were miles long. Sometimes when I am standing at the CVS self-checkout kiosk watching an endless receipt shoot out at me I feel guilty. Think of all the forests my purchases have destroyed. This realization had me pretty down for a moment, but I soon remembered that as long as Donald Trump lives, I couldn’t be the worst person alive.
I felt grateful to Trump — gratitude I never thought I’d feel. I’ve always been more of Ben Carson gal. Something about a renowned brain surgeon who can’t put together a reasonable sentence just really gets me. I wonder how it feels to be one of Ben Carson’s former patients and have to watch him on TV and think, “Oh, God, that dude touched my brain.” I imagine it would be kind of like getting your car back from the repair shop, only to find out while driving around a few hours later that your mechanic was actually a baby possum dressed in human clothes with a wrench in his mouth.
This got me thinking, so I Googled, “possums in costumes.” As it turns out possums are terrifying as hell. My raccoon paranoia grew exponentially upon this discovery. Accordingly, I fled my room and locked the door. I may revisit the situation next year. Until then, dear readers.
Nora Walls is a Humor writer.
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