Today is cleaning day at Haus Hoffmansteingoldberg (aka Home of The Landlord), a day that is more easily recognized by the endless soundtrack of Depeche Mode rather than by the actual appearance of cleaning. I’m not sure what the attraction is to Depeche Mode – don’t get me wrong, they’re fine, but to listen to them for hours? Any sane person can really only enjoy so much of their own personal Jesus. Evidently, however, that rule does not apply to The Landlord, whose self-proclaimed favorite hobby is cleaning his guns in the dark basement while listening to Depeche Mode on repeat.
But watching The Landlord clean reminded me of a memory that I’d suppressed for the past decade, a memory that is so disturbing that it should have remained dormant for all eternity. But now that it’s out and swimming through my head, I figured it might as well go on the Internet, because really, is there a better place to share humiliating/degrading/stupid personal memories? So anyway, it suddenly struck me this morning that when I was about eight or nine, I would take all of my belongings, throw them on the floor of my room, and clean them up again. And why? Because I thought it was fun.