I just spent all morning cleaning for the TiVo installer guys, because it doesn't matter if I live in filth, just that strangers don't think I do. Do you agree, or is it more important to actually be clean?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), June 21, 2001

Answers

In the words of Norma Shearer as Mary Haines in "The Women," "They're equally important, darling." But like you, I clean more when I know I have company coming than not. The public spaces are usually mess- free now, but my bedroom is a fucking shambles. I must learn that piles of paper are not decorative.

/Robert

-- Robert (rbdimmick@earthlink.net), June 21, 2001.

I have a variant on this problem which surfaces when I order a pizza. Usually I order in when I am very, very tired and can't face the thought of leaving my cave to retrieve food, which means that I am wearing floppy drawstring pants and a t-shirt and halfway ready for bed. However, I will not take off my mascara while I am waiting for the pizza; I will save that for after the pizza man has come and gone; because god knows we can't have the pizza man knowing that I actually have no visible eyelashes when barefaced.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), June 21, 2001.

I keep my place pretty clean, but I always move the TV from close to the sofa to back against the wall whenever company's coming.

Also, whenever the phone rings while I'm watching TV, I switch over to one of the music channels before I answer.

I have no idea where this fear of being caught watching television comes from.

-- Catherine (catcoicrit@earthlink.net), June 22, 2001.

I don't care if strangers think I live in filth, it's my friends I don't want to scare off. Thank heaven for a house with two floors

-- Peg Duthie (mechaieh@diaryland.com), June 22, 2001.