define clean

Recently one of my male friends (who, for the record, I consider above average clean, and overall attentive to matters of personal hygiene) confessed (on the condition of anonymity) that he once went three months without changing his sheets. Gross right? Well that's what his girlfriend thought too. He, however, countered that it wasn't as gross as the old food-encrusted plate that he found at the back of her fridge. Apparently her standards for cleanliness do not equally apply to bed sheets and kitchen sinks. And so an argument ensued as to whether dirty sheets or dirty dishes made for a more offensive living situation. I suspect that most people have pushed the limits on bedsheets at one time or another. It's not as though there's any hard and fast rule about how often sheets should be changed. I suppose there are certain variable factors involved. How much action is your bed seeing? Do you have an animal that drools/sheds or otherwise dirties up your sleeping space? Do you eat in bed? Do you sweat profusely? Etc etc. If it helps, Oprah allegedly changes her sheets every 4 days. I change my sheets every 2 weeks (ish) and I feel like that's plenty. To my friend's way of thinking, his sheets don't look dirty, so what's the big deal? But did you know that on average we shed about 1.5 grams of skin cells a day? Eww, that shit is in your bed and dust mites are feeding and living off it. I do think though, that I'll have to agree with my anonymous friend and say that a dirty kitchen is worse than dirty sheets. I mean, you eat in the kitchen right? In college I had this roommate named Kitty who volunteered a couple or days a week at an organic farm. In return, they were always sending her home with random produce that she would consequently shove into the bottom drawer of the fridge, where it would remain untouched for who knows how long because the girl didn't cook. The situation came to a head when I noticed the bizarre smell and the 2 inches of brown sludge that had developed where vegetables had once been. Nobody wants sludge residing a foot away from tomorrow's lunch meat. Food safety is important. I imagine that the average person would be disinclined to eat at a restaurant whose sinks were full of last night's dishes and whose fridges were full of expired milk cartons and month old leftovers. So why would hold lower standards in your own home? Mike?

why not just shower in the shower?

I'm going to break this down into two examples of male logic gone awry: "Why not step my game up?" Absolutely. Why not? You're an adult, you have a good job, it's clearly time to rise above the college level existence. I know you already have a lady, but it wouldn't hurt to impress her every now and then and allow her to believe you have the potential to be someone she may someday want to cohabitate with. It's all kinds of disgusting that you had a 3 year old shower curtain that you had never cleaned, so overall you had the right idea as you entered the Target shower curtain aisle. Unfortunately, here's where you veer off the path and bypass a perfectly bathroom appropriate bamboo setting for a "my first shower curtain," decorate your kid's bathroom-style shower curtain which is apparently also see through so that if your lady wants to brush her teeth while you're in the shower she also has to watch you wash your unmentionables. Come on. Is it too late to exchange for the bamboo? OR perhaps you could keep your silly, facing the wrong way geography curtain on the inside and hang the bamboo curtain on the outside so that you at least present the appearance of stylish home decor. Just a thought. "So why not learn geography?" Seriously, you are obviously not devoting enough time and energy to what is supposed to be the main focus during your shower. You should be lathering up, exfoliating, shampooing, shaving. Do you have a loofah? Or are you just kind of haphazardly slathering the suds from your generic bar soap and assuming that means you are full body clean? Shower time is Mike time. I think you should concentrate on emerging from your shower a cleaner, moisturized and better smelling individual and not worry about Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. Unless you happen to have a San Diego city geography competition coming up?