When a married American male survives into his nineties, it’s probably because he’s finally learned how to be neat. Despite a lifelong procession of role models who dared him to remain selectively blind, he’s beat the odds. He’s skillfully avoided many bone-chilling, life-eroding looks and lessons from his wife or husband – the neat one. But let’s face it, in the American realm no house is large enough to contain all the junk, endlessly multiplying to occupy every square inch.
Anthropology professor Marc Blake (a widower) considers inviting honors students to a party at his house but then realizes he’ll have to do a massive clean-up. When it came to house cleaning, he tried to rationalize that his house – in its current state of decomposition – was really more like a campsite, so no worries. Hadn’t he seen lots of grass huts and corrugated metal yurts that were far less immaculate? But if he were honest, he did feel a bit subhuman, a bit like the Incredible Hulk, skulking around the house vowing to get after the cleanup, soon. (With that green skin, Marc pondered, can the Hulk photosynthesize? Why shouldn’t we genetically engineer tiny botanical solar collectors into our skin?)
He ascribed to a basic element in the bachelor code of ethics: Never let the house get worse than three days’ worth of sweaty, god-awful, superficial remediation. Yet, even with that intensive effort, the neatness would still be largely an illusion, wouldn’t it, because visitors could neither see nor imagine the chaos in drawers, file cabinets, and boxes throughout the house and garage. But wasn’t this really a Standard American Practice (SAP) – shove it in the drawers to at least maintain the appearance of orderliness? Maybe he shouldn’t feel such shame for being interested in other, more pressing things… Well, actually, anything rather than cleaning. Leap from a passenger train? No problem. Eat fried beetles? Done. Sing, These Are a Few of My Favorite Things (tone deaf) at an anthropology conference? All preferable to sorting, wiping and scrubbing. Who was he, Cinderella?
In this bachelor phase of Marc’s life, the term “domestiphobia” might apply – fear of the time and energy required to maintain a flawless household. When Karen was alive, he’d been so much more attentive. She didn’t buy into Marc’s false ineptitude with appliances and cleaners, and she once threatened to show Kai’s mother Michiko – a meticulous Japanese matron – what Marc’s home office looked like. “Now that’ll light a fire under you!” Karen had told him. But her domestic expectations were nothing compared with Marc’s own mother! He remembered thinking when his mom went blind that the sole benefit was never again having to see his house, never again having to urge him, with pleading, religious fervor, to get out the Dirt Devil (whatever that was) and use it… every single day!
*******
Marc observed how Americans were now seeking shelter inside the walls of their warmly humming desktop computers. Websites and social media (he hated that term) had now replaced nature and camaraderie as points of refuge. To be a loyal member of this digital dreamland and demonstrate extreme bravery, who would not boldly click a selfie on a slick promontory overlooking a majestic, thundering waterfall?
Would the simple, good life of his youth ever be seen again or had it been swiped away by billions of selfies grinning from billions of screens, in some cases seconds before death? Grins become grimaces when a lethal plunge or unseen projectile completes the story. In Russia’s Ural Mountains, two hikers got a last, coolest photo of themselves holding a live grenade which somehow did not destroy the phone. Another fun-loving vacationer hung in there during the Running of the Bulls, snapping a close-up of spike-sharp horns irrevocably in search of his trachea. But let’s be honest; when it comes to getting that certain, wacky Facebook shot – preferably taken on a good hair day – no risk is too great.
On every metro senior’s daily to-do list: update Netflix queue, then dispatch a continuous stream of emails, texts and tweets, reporting what we’re doing right now (pretty much nothing). At desks and in coffee shops teeming with tapping laptoppers, Americans continually risked being scolded and humiliated by their own devices for typing incorrect passwords or failing to save critical documents-in-progress. (“Ha ha,” mocks Bart Simpson’s nemesis, Nelson). Adroitly ducking through news briefs on their phones, these once-serene citizens become ninja warriors trained to vaporize popup ads in less than a second, darting under fire to the next morsel of pop culture. Risking personal meltdown when a computer’s response time is slower than a blink, they ignore the fact that one dark day they’ll experience gut-wrenching, emotional upheaval, when the computer they thought was their best friend … crashes! No-o-ooo-o! Taking data, images, bookmarks, their lives – down, like a sinking ship.
