Two basic principles of reciprocity.

There are two basic principles in life that can be depended on for comfort in states of extreme annoyance:

• If someone does something that drives you absolutely fucking up the wall, even the extent that if you're subjected to it for one more moment you're going to start doing harm to yourself in order to overload your psychic pain with physical pain, it is almost guaranteed that you are unknowingly doing something that bothers them just as much.

Which is good. Because fuck those annoying bastards. There is a new person at work, we'll call her "Premium Bathroom Fixtures" or P.B.F. for short (A reference to her most unfortunate name, which makes her, a solid black woman in her fifties, sound like the infant daughter of a stripper named Tiphanni). This person is so consummately annoying that the lapsed and fleeing catholic within me may be invited back so she can light candles, get down on her knees, and pray that P.B.F. just suddenly stops coming to work. And if P.B.F. is not getting annoyed back, then there is no justice in the world.

• With very few exceptions, your idea of clean is someone else's idea of squalor, just as your idea of squalor is someone else's idea of clean.

This leads to something I've decided to call "November 20th Syndrome", after the week that precedes thanksgiving. The only way to prevent offending those you know may have more rigorous constructs surrounding what is "clean", and to prevent subconscious judgements by relatives who may visit for the holidays, women (and very few men) drive everyone they live with absolutely crazy turning the household upside down, purchasing febreeze, scented candles, foaming cleansers, organic floor wax, and brand-name paper towels in such volumes as to displace furniture.

This occurs to me as I'm cleaning my apartment, to prepare for the arrival of a friend. My idea of clean is his idea of squalor, most definitely. However, there is only so much that can be done, our ideas of clean differ so greatly. I've hauled the futon into the other room, bought a new fitted sheet for it, and am using my roommate's ill-gotten Dyson to suck the inscrutable remnants of my fetid lifestyle from the carpet.

Of course, being a man, this guest would neither say anything about the state of my apartment, nor judge me for it. He knew me when my old roommate would leave open cans of fish about, and there was something perpetually oozing on the floor that we christened "the indoor mud puddle". (Later investigation revealed that it was the combination of a broken canister of instant hot chocolate, moistened by condensation from the radiator, given bulk and body by some real mud shaken from Vermont-heavy boots and some discarded and forgotten pairs of Ames brand panties)

I should let the memory of trying to sanitize my home for a guest fortify and comfort me in my experiences with a certain person's apartment.