Dominic Monaghan Ate My Hamster

Way, way back in July of 2008, 2 years after moving into my current house, after the inevitable collapse of my relationship, I posted about my propensity for living in organised chaos.  That only a strict housekeeper, preferably of Eastern European descent, could tame my wild and lackadaisical ways, and keep things neat and tidy, in a manner to which I very much wanted to become accustomed.

This is a picture of my living room on the day I moved in:

10:47am Not even a stray cat hair fluttering across the floor...

And this a picture taken 5 minutes later:

10:52am I know I put the car keys down somewhere...

I know it’s subtle, but if you look really hard, there are a few differences between the pictures. Whose abandoned Pepsi can is that for one thing?

You leave one little piece of junk mail unattended whilst you turn your back and next thing you know you’re living in a war-torn wasteland strewn with remote controllers, random Christmas puddings and empty mobile phone boxes, and trying to make chicken curry in an empty shoebox and drinking your martini’s out of an old pickle jar.

I try to defend my right to live like a bag lady (mostly to my mother btw) by pointing out that even within chaos there is order, even if it is way down at a microscopic level…or probably quantum level in the case of my spare room.  I stand by the maths, and I know where of I speak – I’ve read Jurassic Park more than 20 times.

You maybe forgiven at this juncture for thinking that I am given to hyperbole.  Let me stretch out my right arm, whilst sat here typing on my laptop at the dining table, and tell you what I touch.

An almost empty plastic bottle, half a roll of Christmas wrapping paper, a small book about Champagne, a Lidl flyer, an asthma inhaler, a DVD box set of The X-Files season four and an empty mobile phone box.

And I barely had to stretch for that.

I should be embarrassed.  I am embarrassed.  I have friends coming around tomorrow afternoon (early tomorrow afternoon), which means, having just finished my night shift, I have to put my bone-bastard-idle arse into gear and tidy.

Cleaning is easy.  I can keep things clean.  A long micro-fibre duster, a bottle of Flash, a squirt of bleach and a lot of hot water (having wood floors can be a blessing).

I just can’t pick up after myself.  Somehow I struggle with the simple task of putting things away.

If this column eventually lies idle for more than 12 months, someone should probably call the emergency services, it’s likely I will have been buried in a landslide of books, magazines and Star Trek memorabilia.

Magda, wo sind sie?