Friday, August 19, 2011

Ricebowl 104: Feng Shui

My brother Tom has a great sense of humor. He’s funny, entertaining and is the life of any party or road trip. But he’s also just plain disgusting when it comes to the rules of basic living hygiene. And no, I’m not talking about brushing your teeth or deodorant (although may God have mercy on the soul of whoever thought Axe was a brilliant invention for teens), I’m talking about stuff like throwing the trash away in the trashcan (3 feet away) or taking the leftover dishes out of his room (crusted with cheese from a week ago). If all his cups are dirty, he’ll go out and buy a sweet tea at McDonald’s. Eventually, when he goes to college, I’m sure he’ll be the kid that would rather buy underwear than do laundry. You know, that kid.

His room is a conglomerated mess of weights, dirty basketball clothes, books, test papers, fast food bags, Gatorade bottles and more. It’s gotten to the point where when my dad attempted to push the door open to vacuum on Sunday, he could no longer free a route to the power outlet anymore. We decided to turn to my mother, the unnamed Dragonlady of the house.

Marching herself up to her door (she was brave enough not to wear protective gear), she demanded that he start cleaning. After a 15 minute lecture (to her) about how important his schoolwork was to his grades and how he couldn’t possibly spend the time cleaning, she gave up and left.

The mess grew and shrank, grew and shrank (depending on laundry day) and finally she couldn’t take it any longer. She broke down, went to his room and started to grab books off the floor.

“Mom! Stop it! You’re messing with my Feng Shui!”

That’s it, kids. From now on, if you don’t want to clean your room, just quote the king of dirty dishes. ‘Cause if it’s Feng Shui, it can’t be wrong.




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