Cleaning Check, End-of-Semester Style

I am eternally grateful for cleaning checks.

Don't get me wrong: I'm as predisposed to living in my own filth as the next college student. It really doesn't bother me too much.

But still - without cleaning checks, our apartment would be well on its way to conversion into a toxic waste facility. Though that would be kinda cool, I really don't think it would be considered "BYU-approved housing" anymore.

So every month the management posts that daunting little orange packet, and each roommate selects a page of chores as her own responsibility. The two options for the apartment-checker (I'm not exactly sure of her formal title . . . . We like to think of her as The Bringer of Doom) sit, typed in heavy font, at the bottom of the page: "Pass" or "Fail." At the beginning of the semester, the "Fail" option frightened us, and so we made it a point to accomplish every task on the list to ardent perfection.

Eventually we wizened up. Here at the end of the semester, our cleaning-check innocence long-lost, the night before cleaning checks usually finds us devoting ten precious minutes to wipe down our assigned areas with a wet towel, sweep a vacuum over the carpets, pull a broom over the floors, and pick up whatever clothes, books, and toxic waste clutter the floor. You wouldn't believe how cluttersome toxic waste is.

It's worked so far. The only negative comment I've gotten on my evaluation sheet was, "The blinds are a little dusty," with a cute little smiley face to make sure I wasn't offended by her flaming criticism of my blinds-dusting skills. And I worked so hard . . .

The Toilet Paper Famine

It's happened again - a toilet paper famine. Everyone's quite positive she was the last to buy, and in any case, no all-important TP graces either bathroom in our lovely BYU apartment.

Guys could get away with this a little more easily, for obvious reasons. With us, it's a little ridiculous. No one really mentions it, no one buys some more, and all the while that little post thing next to the toilet hangs empty and desolate. Poor little post thing.

I suppose I'll probably cave and buy some from the Creamery tonight, although I could survive a while longer on my secret emergency stash (You make think this a bit miserly, but I am quite sure most of the other girls have an SES as well, so no harm done). We'll see how things turn out.

And such is life in our little apartment at Brigham Young University. A little quirky, a little stressful, and an altogether lovely topic for a blog, don't you think?