It's official. People are SLOBS.

I recently have had occasion to visit people in their homes. They don't always invite me in, which is fine. But when they do, I'm seriously shocked.

This is not an "upscale" part of town, for the most part. I'm far from the only person in my Zip code to occupy a mobile home. There's an abundance of communities like mine, within a mile or two. The alternative is what used to be called "tract housing" - it sits on a foundation but otherwise is very similar to a manufactured home. 

I often agonize over the exterior of my home - our beloved Porch Kitties know little about hygiene or housekeeping, and as a result, we have a few too many flies out there, and some unappetizing smells when the wind and humidity are just so. We fortunately don't get many visitors so there aren't many moments of embarrassment. And a complete overhaul should begin next week to install a nice ramp, remove the crumbling steps and close off access to under the porch once and for all. The flies can buzz off, and the cats can stay up top. Next Monday is the day for us to put on masks and gloves and clean out a year's worth of, well, "debris."

In my youth, I often heard my mother curse out loud if someone came to the door, because they weren't giving her a chance to straighten up. I learned from this: It's important to fool people into thinking you're an immaculate housekeeper. But now, putting it into perspective, Mom was a damn good housekeeper. She never vacuumed in a shirtwaist dress and pearls like June Cleaver, and my endless curiosity kept our living room coffee table piled with books and magazines more often than not -- but the floors were clean and things were put away, both inside the house and out in the yard. The house probably would have smelled like the fragrance counter of a department store if my parents hadn't been such heavy smokers. But it was more than presentable. Food, especially, was either in the fridge and cupboards or in the trash. Period. None of us brought food into a bedroom. It was just a fundamental fact that food attracts bugs, and who needs that?

Fast-forward to the present day. In our house, we've mapped out exactly where everything needs to go. It's a fairly small space, so we have to be careful and mindful about what comes into the house and where it's kept. We purge often. My dear husband has always been a clean freak. He sweeps the floors every single day, to keep up with our fur-shedding indoor kitty, as well as incidental dust. I burn incense every couple of days and let the ceiling fans circulate it. Laundry gets done once or twice a week, and then it gets put away. Chronic disorder makes me pretty nervous, so the dresser gets tidied a couple of times a month, and so does the bathroom counter. The day before Trash Day is a great opportunity to give junk mail the heave-ho. In other words, the place is "kept up."

So...in my travels for work, I'm seeing plenty of homes where cats live under the porch, but the fly-and-odor situation is ten times worse than ours. Not only cats in the yard, but broken-down motor vehicles on blocks, boats ditto, rusted furniture, the requisite garishly-colored plastic kids' toys, and abandoned kitchen and bathroom fixtures. 

And that's just the yard. I really, truly understand that the homes are small, so sometimes you need to use that front porch as an extension, especially if you've got a big family. Barbecue grill, mismatched furniture, sometimes even a chest freezer or washing machine. It's all good -- but would it kill you to line it up so it's not just haphazardly thrown around? Could you maybe, just occasionally, empty an ashtray? Throw out the plastic dishware that's stuck to the table with various forgotten foodstuffs? Come ON, folks.

And, as Foghorn Leghorn might ask, How-I-say-HOW can you live in a house...get undressed and walk around barefoot in a house...SLEEP in a house where trash is thrown directly onto the floor? Even if, for some reason, you don't have a wastebasket, could you at least flatten that empty Pepsi carton and stack it neatly against a wall? What does it take to go around your house once a day or two, gather up the trash and throw it into your outdoor bin? 

It's basic conventional wisdom that a home has "private" areas and "public areas." Bedrooms, bathrooms and closets are private; living rooms, dining rooms and kitchens are more or less public. So what is one to make of a home where the second you step through the door, you're navigating all manner of trash and debris, where things aren't even piled to make paths like on Hoarders, but just tossed randomly, as if one expects nocturnal elves to deal with it at some point? If these are the "public" areas of the place, I shudder to think what the bathrooms, bedrooms and closets look like. 

My mother would have been 100 years old this coming September 12. Apparently, she lives on in me, the child she once called a "lazy slob." So I'll dedicate this post to her memory. She had standards.