Foul Bachelor Goons
August 24, 2012 2:37 PM Subscribe

Something Awful Goons share stories and thoughts on the bachelor life
posted by The Whelk (321 comments total) 68 users marked this as a favorite

This sounds about right.
posted by verb at 2:40 PM on August 24, 2012

Any sufficiently advanced bachelor is indistinguishable from a mental patient.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:44 PM on August 24, 2012 [42 favorites]

Livin' the dream.
posted by Zed at 2:45 PM on August 24, 2012

I hate doing the dishes and sometimes they pile up for weeks. Eventually they start to smell. Luckily, if you have a big freezer, you can dump your dirty dishes there and the smell goes away!

This is good.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:45 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

My wife makes jokes about how I'm like Dexter. As I read that, I kept thinking "you're all doing it wrong. Bachelorhood isn't an opportunity to be gross and lazy, it's a chance to get everything just so, all lined up straight and folded with laser-like precision, with no one else fucking it up..."
posted by fatbird at 2:47 PM on August 24, 2012 [61 favorites]

The bachelor thread is truly horrible, but it did introduce me to the concept of drinking beers in the shower so I can't hate on it too much.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:49 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

SHOWER WINE.
posted by The Whelk at 2:51 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

I was going to snark about how "stories and thoughts about the bachelor life" was exactly why I stopped fooling with the SA Forums, but no -- I stand corrected. This is golden. As a Foul Bachelorette Frog, I would have stories like this if I weren't too ashamed to tell them.

. . . It was a bunk couch. It was glorious and I wish I got pictures of it before it broke and collapsed onto the bottom couch. Fortunately nobody was sitting on the bottom couch when it happened or they most certainly would have been killed.

bahahahahaha

I was just about to hit post on this comment when I remembered that the most disturbing story of personal uncleanliness I ever heard was in fact from the SA Forums. Allegedly, the young gentleman experienced a period of depression and stress, and consequently allowed his hygiene to lapse for some weeks, during which time he did not remove his Doc Martens. When he experienced pain and odors that left him no choice but to expose his feet again, part of his little toe came with his sock.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:52 PM on August 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

( of course some of us have SOs who bring us cocktails when we're soaking in our obnoxiously bubbly and scented baths. Also sometimes we are smoking in the tub at the same time. )
posted by The Whelk at 2:53 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

I'm really sorry everyone. As part of my youthful indiscretions I actually bought an SA account, :10bux: and all. If it weren't for people like me, this dreck would never have appeared on the Internet.

I sincerely apologize and hope that you all can forgive me.
posted by Talez at 2:56 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

What do you mean dreck? These are valuable life tips.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:58 PM on August 24, 2012 [17 favorites]

Once when I was a bachelor, a female friend came over with her younger brother to hang out and play video games. I was eating gazpacho from Trader Joes or Whole Foods and the younger brother kept staring at me. He thought I was just eating salsa straight from the package.

In hindsight, though, there really isn't much difference so maybe I should have tried that.
posted by Cog at 2:59 PM on August 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

Ducttaping a bladder of boxwine to the shower-wall is proving harder than I thought it would be, 5-liters is surprisingly heavy.

Figured he was kidding except dude's got pictures.

I salute you, sir.
posted by Justinian at 2:59 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

goons dot txt
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:01 PM on August 24, 2012 [8 favorites]

Oh god, despite the fact that I'm a happily married woman, it turns out I'm secretly a bachelor underneath! Yes, I have had a cocktail into the shower! No, I don't want to put on pants! Yes, I am a miserable narcoleptic shut-in!
posted by muddgirl at 3:02 PM on August 24, 2012 [17 favorites]

Metafilter: miserable narcoleptic shut-ins.
posted by The Whelk at 3:03 PM on August 24, 2012 [9 favorites]

Goons? There can be only one. Or three. Occasionally four.
posted by Decani at 3:04 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

the hallmark of a new personal low is usually drinking frozen margaritas out of a batman thermos in the bathtub while reading avengers fanfic on your ipad

i mean so i hear
posted by elizardbits at 3:04 PM on August 24, 2012 [79 favorites]

One of the best things about being an adult is that I don't have to wear pants if I don't want to.
posted by mrbill at 3:04 PM on August 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

sometimes in the winter i will wear extra pants to make up for my summer days of egregious pantslessness
posted by elizardbits at 3:05 PM on August 24, 2012 [10 favorites]

@Talez

no one cares because right now there are people still doing it

also i like how ppl in chat think any of these are in any way ironic or made up
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:05 PM on August 24, 2012

Damn elizardbits I wanna party with you
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:07 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

I clearly need to expand my bachelor mindset.
posted by indubitable at 3:07 PM on August 24, 2012

Dammit, Mr. Kitty, STOP JUDGING ME.
posted by mrbill at 3:09 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I like how drinking in the shower is considered the pinnacle of bachelor adult freedom. I have kids, pets, mortgages, car loans and a spouse. And I still drink in the shower. I'm the exact opposite of a bachelor.

It isn't a bachelor thing. It's a people who really like alcohol thing.
posted by Keith Talent at 3:09 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

My favorite bachelor (slash law school) meal was to buy a bag of dried serrano peppers and then to dump a third of that business into a pot of boiling water and some olive oil. Make pasta with the ensuing Spicy Torture Water. Serve with a juicy, pan fried steak and bagged salad that you eat straight from the bag.

You see, the steak provides protein, the salad provides fiber, the pasta produces endorphins, and the vodka clubs delude you into thinking that life is still worth living.

...

I eat much healthier nowadays, although I do have a bag of dried ghost peppers on reserve.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:09 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

the whelk's spelling is a special gift to us all

the gift of lol
posted by elizardbits at 3:11 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

When I shower and have dishes to wash, I take them into the shower with me and a beer when I have some.

A part of me thinks this is genius, and that is the part that half-heartedly cleans the shower every week or two while taking a shower. Combine that with washing handwash-only clothes while in the shower, and I could consolidate so many chores into shower time! ...Surely there are reasons that this is a bad idea, but this sounds like my most brilliant household chores innovation right now.
posted by yasaman at 3:11 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

"I got creative and tried to open a can of beer with a crossbow."
"There has to be a way to hang a bag of wine from my shower head..."
"Dessert was jelly beans. While I looked at porn."
"if you have a big freezer, you can dump your dirty dishes there and the smell goes away!"
"If you are wondering how you can drink port while still playing guitar, get a bendy straw."
"Only time I will pee in the shower is if I am taking a shower."
posted by iamkimiam at 3:12 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

Also the revelation of my 20s was sleeping facedown in the shower so if I barfed it would just go down the drain without Hendrixing me.
posted by elizardbits at 3:13 PM on August 24, 2012 [26 favorites]

Since my working intensely behavior is indistinguishable from my horribly depressed behavior no one knows how to react if I haven't talked or showered or left the house for three weeks.

Also seamless web just makes being a crazy shut in easier! And the liquor store that is just a block away delivers! You just need to put on pants! Or a star trek robe!

Tip more if you answer the door in the star trek robe.
posted by The Whelk at 3:13 PM on August 24, 2012 [14 favorites]

why are goons so alcoholic and unhappy though
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:13 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

See, this is why the :10bux: for a forums account is worth it. How else are you going to learn how to empty a cyst on the taint with a vacuum cleaner?
posted by delfin at 3:15 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

Not spelling things correctly is part of Bachelor 4 Lyfe.
posted by The Whelk at 3:16 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had rubber duckies that blink like disco lights when they are in the water. PARTY TIMES. then the batteries died and i was sad.
posted by elizardbits at 3:16 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

My partner and I have drunk cocktails out of children's novelty christmas cups, complete with lid and silly straw. So yes, I think the whole category of "drinking in strange places out of strange vessels" more 'borderline alcoholism' than 'charming bachelor derring-do."
posted by muddgirl at 3:17 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Where does one purchase disco duckies that light up cause I only have a pint glass from Vegas that lights up and I use it to mix watercolors in.
posted by The Whelk at 3:17 PM on August 24, 2012

I'm going to find some of those and buy them, elizardbits. For my friend...

(Possibly also for my brother with small children)
posted by jacalata at 3:17 PM on August 24, 2012

oh man i am flashing back horribly to my friend kato filling up his daddy breastfeeding boobsuit bottles with soju and twisting them around to get drunk in the kiddie pool when his inlaws took the kids and we all had a super awesome party
posted by elizardbits at 3:18 PM on August 24, 2012 [11 favorites]

I sleep on the floor, on a U-Haul furniture mat (basically a 6'x6' scrap of felt) that I acquired in college.

Everything I own fits in the back of my car; I'm almost thirty.

Well this is just straight up depressing. I don't know why, but whenever I think of people living anywhere without a proper bed (or their culture's equivalent of one) and a barebones bedroom, it just makes me so sad.
posted by yasaman at 3:18 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Over the years I've accumulated just enough discipline and grace that even though I now live alone and don't have to impress anyone, I still manage to keep my congenital caveman tendencies to a relative minimum. For instance, I often wear pants - by choice!

On the positive side, however, I have to agree with many of the SA bachelors that near-total autonomy - eating/drinking anything anytime, staying up late and sleeping in (on weekends at least), lingering in the porcelain reading room, listening to any music any time at any volume, staying in or going out on a whim, never hearing "you're going to wear that?", and so on - without having to consult or worry about annoying anyone else is an easy thing to get used to.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:19 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

duckies
posted by elizardbits at 3:19 PM on August 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

Why aren't we getting obnoxiously drunk together right now elizardbits?
posted by The Whelk at 3:19 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oooo...Neddie!
posted by Sing Fool Sing at 3:21 PM on August 24, 2012

because you are supposed to be updating your STORY and i am supposed to be wofling for grate justice

THAT IS WHY
posted by elizardbits at 3:21 PM on August 24, 2012

You want to really make your iced coffee worth it? Freeze coffee in an ice cube tray. Use in place of regular ice. That way your coffee doesn't dilute.

Can...can you do this with whiskey?
posted by jquinby at 3:21 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Well now this entire rotisserie chicken I'm eating with my hands seems downright civilized.
posted by troika at 3:22 PM on August 24, 2012 [14 favorites]

why are goons so alcoholic and unhappy though

Poor life choices, weight gain from SSRIs, and bitterness -- that's how it was with me, anyway.

There was a widely circulated pic on the forums of some guy's room that was, in fact, a cave. Technically it was an unfinished basement, but the actual human construction was just a bare wall and timbers overhead. There was a desk with a computer, a lamp, and a sleeping bag draped on a hill of bare earth. That was all. If the internet had a bedroom, that would have been it. I wish I could link it now.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:22 PM on August 24, 2012 [22 favorites]

Also I am in Maine

(none of this ...fits)
posted by The Whelk at 3:24 PM on August 24, 2012

THIS NO FIT
posted by elizardbits at 3:25 PM on August 24, 2012

Excuse me may I cut in?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:26 PM on August 24, 2012

Can...can you do this with whiskey?

No, because the freezing point of whisky is like 30-40 below zero or something. So instead, someone invented whisky stones.
posted by jacalata at 3:26 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

I'm trying to think of any of the gross things or bizarre kludges I came up with that I did living alone that I don't do now or attempt to hide, and I'm not thinking of any.
posted by bleep at 3:27 PM on August 24, 2012

Follow up Q: Do you have any Grey Poupon?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:27 PM on August 24, 2012

ohhh bleep. SO many. So many. Ultimate bachelor kludge may have been when i moved in with my girlfriend, i had lots of stuff so i just put an ad on craigslist and a bunch of nice impoverished people showed up and took all of my stuff. Ta da! Moving made simple.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:29 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Can...can you do this with whiskey?

No, because the freezing point of whisky is like 30-40 below zero or something. So instead, someone invented whisky stones.
posted by jacalata at 17:26 on August 24 [+] [!]

AHEM

What you need is a -80C freezer. Peep this guy right here. Perfect for your home bar. Has a substantial handle.

Don't use whiskey stones! Phase transitions are your friend.
posted by samofidelis at 3:35 PM on August 24, 2012

Was hesitant to fix the typo in the post because I wasn't sure if it was possible to butcher the word that badly accidentally, but did it anyway.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:36 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

why are goons so alcoholic and unhappy though

It's not that they are any more unhappy or drunk than other forums (TCC & FYAD excluded), it's just unhappy and/or dunk people are more likely to talk about it.

This is going to start out sounding weird, but hear me out. When I was a bachelor, I re-discovered bathtime in a big way. (Note - I did not say bathing, but I was a strictly a shower guy from the ages of 10-22.)

I shared a big apartment in Chicago with a couple of friends of mine, and I had my own bathroom with a huge, old claw-footed cast iron tub. (It probably looked like this 100 years ago). I built a setup where I could bring in music via my mp3cd player, ice, drinks, a makeshift writing desk with a beat up Powerbook, some snacks, and I could just spend an afternoon just working and hanging out in the tub. The apartment was long enough that I couldn't hear my roommates on the other side of the house, and I could just chill out with some GBV, American Analog Set, or some Silver Jews and relax. Some of my best writing and ideas came from that tub.

Damn good times. My current apartment is great, but the bathtub is just too short and shallow, and not comfortable for hanging out. I really miss it.

Bathtime. Get to know it, all over again. You'll be glad you did.
posted by chambers at 3:36 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

Whiskey stones confuse me, now that someone pointed it out in another thread. Why would someone want to chill their whiskey without diluting it? My impression has always been that a bit of cool water or ice is great for some whiskeys, but others should be served at room temperature.

Making it colder without putting any water in... why?
posted by muddgirl at 3:41 PM on August 24, 2012

(And heck, if that's your preference, maybe just keep it in the fridge?)
posted by muddgirl at 3:41 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have been living out of hostels for the past few months. Its like living in a room full of 10 foul bachelor frogs, with maids that clean up after you every day or so, maybe. The things I have seen in bathrooms, showers and kitchens are kind of scary...

I used to work in hostels. My skin itches for a hazmat suit just thinking about some of the more memorable instances. Scary is a motherfucking understatement.
posted by romakimmy at 3:45 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I found that the most versatile of tools is a student ID. Sure, you can use it to get discounts and various college uses. Whatever. It also doubles as a great way to open locked doors. The other exquisite use is for when you are out of silverware. It's a half-ass knife, but no worse than a plastic knife. You can kind of use it as a spoon. And it wipes clean on your pants.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 3:45 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

Locking yourself out of your apartment and then watching your landlord open your door with a C-Town customer card is a very humbling and mildly terrifying experience for the young under graduate
posted by The Whelk at 3:50 PM on August 24, 2012 [9 favorites]

In fairness, it is considered polite on the forums to be mildly ashamed of the bachelor thread.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:51 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Twiggy Johnson

I sleep on the floor, on a U-Haul furniture mat (basically a 6'x6' scrap of felt) that I acquired in college.

Everything I own fits in the back of my car; I'm almost thirty.

This guy should start a religion. He would make a king's ransom.
posted by hot_monster at 4:11 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Until recently I shared a living situation with three other guys. Our idea of decorating was absurd amounts of post-it-notes with vague, drunken in-jokes scrawled on them and pretty much duct taping anything remotely novel to the wall (our crowning achievement was the mounted head of a garish, orange and purple, piñata Tyrannosaurus Rex). Eventually the most self-respecting of the four of us (spoilers: it wasn't me) drew the line when I considered actually acquiring a big TGI Fridays sign to hang above the TV.
posted by sendai sleep master at 4:17 PM on August 24, 2012

This post has been very inspiring. I now a) feel better about my life b) have taken off my pants c) am drinking a beer. Mazel Tov.
posted by Diablevert at 4:24 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

I call bullshit on the guy washing dishes in the shower.

In my first post-collegiate apt, my roommate and I washed our dishes in the bathtub because the sink was too small. Had we been more experienced we'd have just used paper plates.

Also, I thought everyone drank in the bath.
posted by octobersurprise at 4:28 PM on August 24, 2012

Where does one purchase disco duckies that light up

Ours came from Cost Plus, although I don't see them on the website.

They never want to float right-way up, though.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:38 PM on August 24, 2012

Also, I thought everyone drank in the bath.

I read that as drank the bath, and my stomach turned upside down for a moment.

RE: the bathtub drinking, there is a difference between casually drinking in the bath and turning the whole bathroom into a partially submerged office/art studio/chillout tent/fortress of solitude several times a week. When I realized I was giving some serious thought to installing another bathtub in my bedroom, including temporary rigged plumbing in a rented apartment, I knew I may have taken things too far.
posted by chambers at 4:39 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Also also, once we called a plumber when the toilet backed up. The plumber asked "Did you flush any food down there?" To which my roommate replied, "Man, we wash the dishes in the bathtub, not the toilet."
posted by octobersurprise at 4:39 PM on August 24, 2012 [23 favorites]

I have lived with someone, parents, men, kids, most of my adult life. The best time I ever had was when I was staying with my folks after a divorce and they went out of town.

I made myself some pasta, put on a patterned Indian cotton dress, turned on the news, and started yelling back at the TV (it was a Presidential address, not the current POTUS). While sipping a fine merlot.

The next morning, I did Babar Yoga from a library book about Babar and Celeste doing yoga. That night, the creeper dude I'd dated once knocked on the door and gave me chocolate. I told him I didn't really want to go to breakfast with him and his Pa on Sunday, but I kept the chocolate.

Then I moved in with my current husband, a lifelong bachelor and former dancer, whose early years consisted of living with other guys in rooming houses or partying on buses. The only rules were, "don't smoke pot too close to the theater, because it's giving us a bad name." Otherwise, anything goes.

After a week of throwing out pizza boxes stacked high enough to turn them into TV trays, I noticed my feet were turning black every time I walked barefoot on the wood floors.

"When was the last time you washed the floors," I asked.

"Oh, I never wash floors," he replied, breezily. With a wave of his dancer's hand.

"When did you move in here again?" I asked.

"Three or four years ago." I think I raced for the bucket and mop. Only to discover that there was no bucket or mop.

One of our first arguments was over whether a toilet brush was a waste of money. Then he found out that the Dollar Tree sells everything for indeed, a dollar, and he proudly brought me home a mop, which lasted exactly 4 washings of our galley kitchen floor.

It's been a fun ride, because my idea of bachelorhood is sipping fine wine in a furnished duplex on Lake Michigan, and his is eating pizza as many times as possible per week and never washing his bathrobe, because it might make the rip in the elbow spread.

My question is: I have tried the no pants thing. I have to wear underwear, I can't not wear underwear (unless I am wearing shorts or a skirt, then I can do it if I have to), but it's this:

How on Earth do you guys keep your buttocks and thighs and nasty bits from sticking to a vinyl desk chair? Isn't it uncomfortable? Don't you get skid marks on the furniture? What about sweat? I have to wear some clothing, even in the summer, because well, ladies perspire.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 4:40 PM on August 24, 2012 [9 favorites]

And this, kids, is why we do not have internet sex with strangers.

I call bullshit on the guy washing dishes in the shower.

I used to live in an apartment so small the shower was in the kitchen and yes, I totally used to grab the dishes right out of the sink and wash them whilst bathing. (I did rinse them in the sink one more time afterwards though.)
posted by DarlingBri at 4:41 PM on August 24, 2012

I have woken up to someone asking me if I threw up in the bathtub cause they found snow peas and baby carrot chunks clogging the drain.

I never said I was proud.

Oh I once ruined like a couple of hundred dollars worth of shoes with the powers of vomit.

And a latex cat suit.

College was fun.
posted by The Whelk at 4:42 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

In fairness, it is considered polite on the forums to be mildly ashamed of the bachelor thread.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:51 PM on August 24 [1 favorite +] [!]

There's an interesting layering of shame and pride in the word 'goony'.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:43 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

First of all, I'm assuming those of you who imbibe in the shower are at least doing it out of sippy cups because, you know, dilution.

Also, the grossest part of these stories about shower/bath drinking and eating is that they involve bachelor bathtubs. I have at various times visited fellows whose showers were approximately as clean as the Trainspotting toilet. I wouldn't set foot in them without a hazmat suit for fear of catching cholera.

And you're havin' cocktail parties in there? Ew.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:44 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

And a latex cat suit.

Have I ever said that you're my hero?
posted by octobersurprise at 4:47 PM on August 24, 2012

Aw, my little brother is quoted in there.

For some reason, I have had good luck with the men I date as far as their habits; I'm pretty tidy and must attract tidy, clean men. Until I dated someone off the internet (harkening back to the "don't have sex with strangers from the internet, though maybe it's a coincidence?)!

He and his roommate were disgusting. I mean... they didn't throw away things in their apartment that the previous tenants left there, like a pile of musty nursing scrubs in their hallway. The bathroom was just... unspeakable. I cleaned their kitchen because I couldn't even heat up coffee without wanting to vomit (grease everywhere, dirty dishes). My ex was better (neater) than the roommate, who lived in a nest of garbage. Pringles cans and soda cans all over his desk and the floor around his desk. It was really, really uncivilized. It was my first and I really, really hope my last taste of how these kind of bachelors live.

Fun fact: when I cleaned their kitchen, my ex gave let his disapproval be known with the job I did; I put things in "weird places". Didn't know a drawer was any weirder than getting your silverware out of a cardboard box that also contains your graduation cap and gown. He was a real winner.
posted by peacrow at 4:49 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

And you're havin' cocktail parties in there? Ew.

Alcohol kills germs!

More seriously, whenever my partner goes out of town, the house gets dirtier for a couple of days and then I fall into Clean And Orderly Bachelor patterns, with everything in its place, small rituals being followed in the correct order... and then she returns and my carefully constructed house of cards collapses. If I ever decide to be a serial killer, I will be one of the clean and creepy ones, rather than the kind who get caught because they misplaced some body parts and forgot to clean up the crime scene.
posted by Forktine at 4:54 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

He thought I was just eating salsa straight from the package.

Chuh I do that without shame. Chips have carbs is my halfassed justification, but really it's that I like salsa a lot more than chips, and pretzel chips don't go with salsa.

I have a bed only because one day a couple of years ago I woke up from slumber to find one of the spiders in my garden apartment was nestled on my pillow about an inch from my eyeball. I am fond of spiders, but prefer to sleep alone.

There is nothing wrong with drinking in the bathtub. If I could bring myself to drink nasty bag wine I'd totally tape some to the wall so that I could refresh myself in between stirring bathroom songs without all the trouble of picking up my bathroom Dixie cup. I've broken too many wine glasses on the tiles to get fancy with the bathroom drankin

No I don't let people in my house- why do you ask?
posted by winna at 4:57 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Don't you get skid marks on the furniture?

I learned to wipe my ass when I was ~3 years old but wow, I guess ymmv.

also underwears are a thing
posted by elizardbits at 4:58 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Drinking port through a bendy straw is sheer genius.

I have to admit, the more time I spend single, the more I come to treasure the existence. I've pretty much embraced the spinster life. It's pretty awesome.

I think the oddest thing I've ever done was, back when I was breeding tropical fish semi-professionally, I kept six or seven 5-gallon tanks of baby fishies on the kitchen counter. It was so convenient for water changes! Plus the lighting was better in there than anywhere else, so that I could observe them well without having to rig up some kind of light hood.

Sometimes people came over and looked askance at them. And I would be all, "Well where do YOU keep your brood tanks???"
posted by ErikaB at 4:59 PM on August 24, 2012 [8 favorites]

also rn i am eating macaronis from the pot with the wooden spoon because ugh so lazy

also less dishes to wash, i winar.
posted by elizardbits at 4:59 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

i will now say ALSO again because of reasons
posted by elizardbits at 5:01 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

I learned to wipe my ass when I was ~3 years old but wow, I guess ymmv.

I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about a man. Whom I live with. Because I want to know if this a man thing. Having washed many men's undershorts, etc. I am just curious.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:02 PM on August 24, 2012

Are people who are squirming about the no-pants thing perhaps reading it from the British English perspective of pants=underoos?
posted by samofidelis at 5:04 PM on August 24, 2012

How on Earth do you guys keep your buttocks and thighs and nasty bits from sticking to a vinyl desk chair? Isn't it uncomfortable? Don't you get skid marks on the furniture? What about sweat? I have to wear some clothing, even in the summer, because well, ladies perspire.

Ok - the magic answer is 'towel'

1)
a. buttocks stick, but you learn to just not move much - maybe use a towel as a seat cover
b. Positioning and placement are everything.
2)
Eventually. Hence introduction of 'magic answer' heretofore know as 1a, subsection b
3)
See 1a, subsection b. - the towel is going in the wash anyways.*
4)
See 1a, subsection b.

*When the actual washing is done depends on the number of days of 'passable' clean clothes divided by the distance to the washing machine then ignore the result and just say 'two days', or 'pretty soon'.

Fortunately, one 'bottoms out' usually and then starts being somewhat more responsible on their own, and starts to bring themselves out of the filth that is early bachelorhood. There is some correlation between a relationship's success during this time and the time during this delicate period that relationship actually begins and the final result of the bachelor's final cleanliness setting, but I am having a hard time hashing it out.

In any case, get a place with a washer/dryer. If you are thinking of a gift for a bachelor, a Roomba is always good, 'cause odds are it ain't gonna happen, and it will get them used to having and expecting clean floors.
posted by chambers at 5:04 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I cleaned their kitchen because I couldn't even heat up coffee without wanting to vomit (grease everywhere, dirty dishes).

Yeah, my old bf thought I cleaned his tiny, filthy, borderline hoarderish house when I came to stay because I was kind and he worked hellish hours, but it was actually because I started to hyperventilate and develop nervous tics as soon as I came in the door. Protip: If you want to retain your romantic illusions about someone, for god's sake, never ever look inside their microwave.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:05 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

Also the revelation of my 20s was sleeping facedown in the shower so if I barfed it would just go down the drain without Hendrixing me.

Most.Hardcore.Thing.Ever.
posted by RolandOfEld at 5:06 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

never ever look inside their microwave

I just looked inside my microwave and found a single tortilla chip

spoiler alert: i ate it
posted by elizardbits at 5:10 PM on August 24, 2012 [24 favorites]

also rn i am eating macaronis from the pot with the wooden spoon because ugh so lazy

No not lazy, dear ma'am. Efficient.
posted by winna at 5:11 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

I cleaned their kitchen because I couldn't even heat up coffee without wanting to vomit (grease everywhere, dirty dishes).

Sometimes I worry that I am every terrible foul bachelorette frog macro condensed into one person, but then I read stuff like this and remember that my mother has sufficiently indoctrinated me into believing that even mild clutter is like unto hideous filth, and that my equivalent of wild and crazy foul bachelorettedom when it comes to hosuekeeping consists of not dusting for a month and leaving my dishes unwashed for a couple of days. I totally eat like a foul bachelorette though, and I can't even be sorry about that. (TRADER JOE'S BELGIAN MILK CHOCOLATE CRISPS ARE A VALID BREAKFAST FOOD, I SWEAR.)
posted by yasaman at 5:14 PM on August 24, 2012

and thrifty.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:14 PM on August 24, 2012

What do I know I am sitting with a bottle of wine on the shoreof a lake in my underpants pointing out constellations and abusing the voice recognition option on my phone to post to metafilter.

I am going to have so many interesting mosquito bites.
posted by The Whelk at 5:14 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Oh shit, honey get some tortilla chips.

Under pants dock party tonight yessss
posted by The Whelk at 5:15 PM on August 24, 2012

I take my shirt off in order to eat dinner because I eat while propped up in bed with a book and if I drip anything it ends up on my torso. I am more washable than a cotton shirt.
posted by restless_nomad at 5:15 PM on August 24, 2012 [9 favorites]

that is called the nudie bib

fyi
posted by elizardbits at 5:17 PM on August 24, 2012 [25 favorites]

Neptune and Aquarius are rising in the east motherfucker, look at that and bring me another bottle.
posted by The Whelk at 5:17 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe we should.form a social group called GROSS MONSTERS.
posted by The Whelk at 5:19 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

>> You want to really make your iced coffee worth it? Freeze coffee in an ice cube tray.
>> Use in place of regular ice. That way your coffee doesn't dilute.

jquinby: > Can...can you do this with whiskey?

Sure, it just takes some dry ice or LN2. You'll burn the fuck out of your lip, and you won't be able to taste the whiskey.

Whiskey *maybe* gets a splash of spring water. (Upgrade that to "certainly" if it's cask strength.) Dine on the 24-for-a-dollar ramen noodles if you must, but the solution to wanting your whiskey cold is to get better whiskey.

Those "whiskey stones" are unmitigated douchebaggery of the deepest conceivable dye, and anyone who says different should be promptly pantsed, and soaked down with the contents of the nearest fire extinguisher.

mudgirl: > Yes, I have had a cocktail into the shower!

You can pull this off with any of those sports bottles with a bite-to-open top, but that lacks panache. A cartoon-character-themed sippy cup is ideal, though you shouldn't rule out the spartan utility of a bota-bag full of kamikazes.
posted by sourcequench at 5:22 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

I totally eat like a foul bachelorette though, and I can't even be sorry about that.

Oh yeah. I eat frozen pizza and use the box as a plate. And I'm not sorry. But (thanks to my own mother's cleanliness), I throw the box away when I'm done, in a garbage can, rather than on the living room floor.
posted by peacrow at 5:23 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

My goal in life is to hold important meetings with powerful people while in a large bathtub, covered in bubbles, and sipping manhattans out of a big plastic novelty iron man cup.

Also I have a pet tarantula and it is on my shoulder.
posted by The Whelk at 5:26 PM on August 24, 2012 [15 favorites]

i hope in this scenario it's name is quentin
posted by elizardbits at 5:29 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

I really, really want to be friends with elizardbits and The Whelk after reading this thread.

I've actually gotten cleaner since living alone, sadly, only because I don't want FUCKING ROACHES ALL OVER MY KITCHEN.
posted by whitneyarner at 5:29 PM on August 24, 2012 [11 favorites]

:::creeped out because she is sitting on a lake in similar circumstances:::

Get out of my head, Whelk!
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:31 PM on August 24, 2012

:::Looking at Kill Bill video sitting on desk:::

Even creepier.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:34 PM on August 24, 2012

I just feel like this is the appropriate thread to notify people that I have no food in the house and am going out of town tomorrow and therefore dinner tonight will consist of Wasa crackers, sardines and canned corn.
posted by nathancaswell at 5:35 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

We must battle
posted by The Whelk at 5:36 PM on August 24, 2012

I'm sitting in my underwear eating roast beef cold cuts out of the package and dipping the slices into horseradish.

Right now my favorite bachelor meal is think sliced kobe roast beef with Inglehoffer wasabi horseradish and fleur de sel on toasted mini portuguese rolls. I've eaten three of them a day for the last week.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:36 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

I just feel like this is the appropriate thread to notify people that I have no food in the house and am going out of town tomorrow and therefore dinner tonight will consist of Wasa crackers, sardines and canned corn.

What about this thread makes you want to show off how fancy your dinner is?
posted by elsp at 5:36 PM on August 24, 2012 [11 favorites]

Thin, thin sliced.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:37 PM on August 24, 2012

Oh and also I am naked and for some reason I decided to shave my beard into a mustache this evening, so just go ahead and picture that as well
posted by nathancaswell at 5:38 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

i am going to go ahead and picture you with seneca crane's magical beard, because this amuses me
posted by elizardbits at 5:39 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yes yes it's all a beautiful tapestry
posted by The Whelk at 5:40 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

now i am picturing seneca crane grumpily eating a can of corn and it is the best thing
posted by elizardbits at 5:40 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Ugh, all of you people hanging out barely clothed and eating delicious bachelor(ette) food disgust me. I am still stuck in the office for another twenty minutes, would that I could begin my lazy bachelorette weekend already.
posted by yasaman at 5:42 PM on August 24, 2012

This thread reminds me of the days I used to sit, reading the blue, hour upon hour, day after day, under the fluorescent lights, in my grey cubicle. This world of Nerds. This crazy, whacky, wonderful world of Nerds. Little did I know that I was a closet Nerd.

All of you people there, at the other end of the line, know this: you are giving some closet Nerd a chance right now. Keep on Shining, Nerds!
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:44 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Livin' the dream.
posted by Zed at 5:45 PM on August 24

But when that idyllic dream of bachelor foulness begins to rot, it ends, inexorably, in unsanitary insanity.

Caveat lector: the Internet Archive will never forget the nightmare that was SA's "Tale of the Mad Feces King" (single page link) (previously).
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:50 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

As I read that, I kept thinking "you're all doing it wrong. Bachelorhood isn't an opportunity to be gross and lazy, it's a chance to get everything just so, all lined up straight and folded with laser-like precision, with no one else fucking it up..."

Yeah, my apartment/home was never cleaner than when I was single. Its one of the things I have always had issues with in relationships, not enough to keep me from them but when things have ended one of the best ways to cheer myself up is to get everything all clean and organized the way I never seem to be able to with a partner...
posted by wildcrdj at 5:53 PM on August 24, 2012

Nutella from the jar is a nutritious and delicious breakfast! It's the people who feel the need to put it on bread who are the strange ones.
posted by pymsical at 5:58 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

The woman who ordered a pizza to use as a heating pad? BRILLIANT.

Also, I have had booze in the shower - I was drinking from a bottle of mike's hard lemonade. I had been working some absurd hours because of a high profile outage at work, and I really needed a shower and I really needed a drink.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:00 PM on August 24, 2012

What nutella on bread what madness is this.
posted by winna at 6:00 PM on August 24, 2012

Oh god, Nutella from the jar. SPOON SANDWICHES.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:00 PM on August 24, 2012

this thread is the best thread
posted by elizardbits at 6:02 PM on August 24, 2012 [13 favorites]

Well this is just straight up depressing. I don't know why, but whenever I think of people living anywhere without a proper bed (or their culture's equivalent of one) and a barebones bedroom, it just makes me so sad.

i agree that a proper bed is the foundation of any civilized lifestyle. (you may argue that a futon "counts", but you're pushing it.)

I had a friend who moved to a city temporarily for work, he rented the cheapest place he could and only got an airmattress for furniture. his wife had been staying with family, and he had a storage unit full of proper furniture someplace far away, so he thought anything additional would be a waste of money. (he had a laptop as well, i believe he had a box or a chair he propped it up on to watch "tv" in bed. he also had one of those hand-pumped clothes washers, but i digress.)

at one point his now pregnant wife finally moved in with him, and was pretty unhappy with the furniture situation. many conversations ended with the male saying "but we have furniture, why buy more?" the female finally won out, insisting "we are getting a bed!"
posted by camdan at 6:05 PM on August 24, 2012

Evah. Cuz I have Nutella in a jar in my pantry.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:06 PM on August 24, 2012

The social lie of nutella on bread. Everyone knows you just eat it with a damn spoon.

Not sure who decided that a clip of a kid pulling his tooth out belonged in an ad for a chocolate hazelnut sugar spread. Weird.
posted by pymsical at 6:09 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

When I get back from the gym, I stand there in my SSR T-shirt and eat peanut butter or mustard with a spoon.

If I'm very good I remember to get a stick of celery to stick into the butter/mustard.
posted by The Whelk at 6:11 PM on August 24, 2012

Being 30 now and living with my SO really puts the chafe on my bachelorStyle...but this thread makes me think of the bachelor glory days of 25 - which marks the moment I became self-aware of the pathetic pot I was stewing in, and like Adam and Eve realizing their nakedness, became ashamed.

I had a decent job right out of college but continued to live like a poor student in a rather large 2 story unit in West LA for no reason other than habit. In the 3 years I lived there I never bothered to furnish any room but my bedroom...so the whole bottom floor was an empty living space and a kitchen with a few essentials in it. One day a buddy from NYC was visiting LA and let himself in. He walked, in shock, through the dusty, empty bottom floor of my apartment up to the second floor to find me in the bathroom, wrapped in a sheet wearing nothing but my underwear where I was doing a poor job of cutting my own hair with a 10 year old buzzer. He just looked at me surrounded by clumps of hair and said "Jesus." It was quite funny.

I still cut my own hair, only now I'm quite skilled at it. My girlfriend thinks its nuts...but can no longer deny the results.
posted by jnnla at 6:15 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

When I was a bachelor, living in an actual, closet sized bachelor apartment, I once climbed up onto the fridge to dust and realized it was the only new place to hang out. So I started hanging out up there, made myself a little pillowy reading area - things were good.

Unfortunately I got so used to hanging out up there that it didn't seem weird anymore, plus I forgot that I had given notice to move out of that shithole, which led to the landlord once bringing in some middle aged potential new tenant to see the place while I kind of froze, since I happened to be sitting cross legged on the fridge smoking a joint in the middle of the afternoon and was (understandably?) paranoid and awkward.
posted by mannequito at 6:18 PM on August 24, 2012 [74 favorites]

Eating mustard with a spoon is insufficient detail. What kind of mustard?

I hope to god it's not that godless yellow mustard that would be disturbing.
posted by winna at 6:18 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

My bachelor habits that seem to draw the weirdest looks from company involve my innovations in freezer use.

First my main diet staple that I cook is frozen vegetables heated only until the water first begins to boil and the only food in my freezer is five or six big sacks of frozen vegetables.

The rest of my freezer space is taken up by garbage: banana peels, apple cores, orange peels, egg shells, used tea bags, empty yogurt cups, &c. Any garbage a cockroach might like is in the freezer until I take out the trash in the morning or maybe day after tomorrow morning. I live on the Gulf Coast and rarely see cockroaches in my apartment.

There are other things I do when there isn't any company that would fit on that thread but I don't even post them on the internet, let alone do them in front of other people. If I happened to be naked right now I would not be tellin' y'all that datum.
posted by bukvich at 6:20 PM on August 24, 2012

I just admitted to my best friend that I've poured white wine Dijon mustard into my hand and licked it until it was all gone under the influence of this thread.

He shrieked WHAT THE FUCK and is now sitting in disapproving silence at me.
posted by winna at 6:22 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Not everyone is as tolerant of eccentricity as you all are, is what I'm saying. I am not going to tell him about the fact I've done the same with horsey sauce if he's going to act like a food Puritan.
posted by winna at 6:23 PM on August 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

If u've never even tried using an iron as a toaster I pity u.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:26 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

The mustard is that really thick, greenish, really gritty kind you get from France in little mason jars that makes your eyes water.

Sometimes I just eat a spoon of that in lieu of breakfast. Or coffee.

Seem times I just bite into a red onion and eat it whole.

Really wakes you up.
posted by The Whelk at 6:26 PM on August 24, 2012

I've eaten like four duck sauce packets and nothing else for dinner so how can I judge.
posted by The Whelk at 6:28 PM on August 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

I once climbed up onto the fridge to dust and realized it was the only new place to hang out. So I started hanging out up there, made myself a little pillowy reading area - things were good.

Whatever Barton.
posted by The Whelk at 6:30 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

Unfortunately I got so used to hanging out up there that it didn't seem weird anymore, plus I forgot that I had given notice to move out of that shithole, which led to the landlord once bringing in some middle aged potential new tenant to see the place while I kind of froze, since I happened to be sitting cross legged on the fridge smoking a joint in the middle of the afternoon and was (understandably?) paranoid and awkward.

After reading this I became so much more aware of the spatial and spiritual possibilities of this universe. Thank you, earnestly, thank you.
posted by sendai sleep master at 6:31 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

That French mustard is awesome! I love the way the little mustard bits crunch in your teeth.

I think on top of the fridge would be a good place to sit. It is warm. Cats like it, and they're discriminating judges of comfort.
posted by winna at 6:32 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

In two years in my last apartment, I never even unpacked my dishes or pots and pans. When I moved out, my refrigerator contained 11 pizza boxes and a half eaten subway sandwich of uncertain age, and three empty cardboard six packs of hard cider and nothing else. My freezer had an open half eaten pint of ice cream with a spoon in it.
posted by empath at 6:32 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

Gritty French mustard on crispy thin pretzel crackers.

That and some pear brandy and a few chicken hearts? I'm golden. Maybe some nuts and berries too.

My tounge lives in the 13th century.
posted by The Whelk at 6:33 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

My freezer had an open half eaten pint of ice cream with a spoon in it.

Use a fork. It tastes better.
posted by mikurski at 6:33 PM on August 24, 2012

"There has to be a way to hang a bag of wine from my shower head..."

In Australia you used to be able to buy goon bag bags; just right for hanging from a showerhead. Unfortunately there are many things about which the Internet is ignorant - and this is one of them.

The basic pattern was like a large peg bag, except made out of the same stuff as a cheap plastic cooler bag and with a hole for the tap at the bottom.
posted by Pinback at 6:34 PM on August 24, 2012

I just realized the really weird thing about that refrigerator perching story.
who in the hell dusts the top of the refrigerator?!
posted by winna at 6:34 PM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

Nutella from the jar is a nutritious and delicious breakfast! It's the people who feel the need to put it on bread who are the strange ones.

Once I was lonely and broke in England in college, and all I had was a jar of Nutella and some corn flakes. Poured the cornflakes into a cup, scooped up Nutella, and ate them together, flavored with my lonesome tears while watching horrible BBC shows and listening to the cold indifferent rain.

Good times.

My mother-in-law once discovered my husband's brother had decided to sleep on a pile of dirty clothes (his own at least) rather than buy even an air mattress. He had the money. He just didn't care.

These days he's self employed...as a housecleaner. I guess he's not likely to be shocked by anything his customers do.
posted by emjaybee at 6:35 PM on August 24, 2012

the worst is when all the utensils are dirty and you are left with the terrible choice between a soup ladle or some chopsticks
posted by elizardbits at 6:35 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

i dust everything because adderall
posted by elizardbits at 6:36 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

who in the hell dusts the top of the refrigerator?!

awkward, paranoid stoned people
posted by mannequito at 6:36 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

who in the hell dusts the top of the refrigerator

Tall people.

The tops of your picture frames are DISGUSTING.
posted by The Whelk at 6:37 PM on August 24, 2012 [16 favorites]

Or if you're tall enough to see up there. Or minifridge.

the worst is when all the utensils are dirty and you are left with the terrible choice between a soup ladle or some chopsticks

Utensils? Plural? I try to stick with a fork and a swiss army knife. Anything more and I just end up stacking it in the sink.
posted by mikurski at 6:39 PM on August 24, 2012

I am tall enough to see them both and yet I do not care.

The really horrible thing is the weird blue fluff that the air purifier generates. It accumulates in corners and when I vacuum once a week it takes forever to get all that weird blue fluff from around the air purifier. It's probably the causative agent for morgellon's and I'm going to start having nylon grow from my skinn.
posted by winna at 6:39 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

One day, I flew to England. As we were landing, I saw great patches of farm fields, some green, and some a brilliant yellow.

We climbed the Tor Hill, after our visit to Avebury, and requisite New Agers holding hands, while the local sheep scratched their backs against the stones. I later discovered the New Age lady was staying at my B&B, which was in the process of getting an award for their front garden, lovely people in Glastonbury!

The way down was cold, as the sun was setting. We ended up in a locals' pub, half underground, a bit dark and dismal, but cozy.

I struck up a conversation with the old gent on our bench. "What's all that yellow, then?"

"Tis moostud."

I had never even thought about where mustard came from. So thanks, you Brits!
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:44 PM on August 24, 2012

That and some pear brandy and a few chicken hearts? I'm golden.

A couple of days ago I saw a package of chicken hearts at the grocery store, and ever since I have been having visions of grilling them on a skewer, maybe with a sesame/ginger marinade. Yum, hearts...
posted by Forktine at 6:56 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

An acquaintance of mine kept having his roommates move out on him for arranged marriages. This led him to move constantly. To make moves easier, he eventually paired down his belongings to a laptop, an air mattress, and a duffel bag full of clothes. But he's a very successful programmer, so he is making a lot of money. Finally he decides "enough with these roommates, I'm buying a house." So he moves in and never buys anything for it—it never occurs to him to bother. Just a house with a laptop, an air mattress, and a duffel bag full of clothes. He ends up in an arranged marriage. Meets his wife in back in India, gets to know her, marries, and so on. She comes back to the US and sees his house for the first time. TOTALY HORRIFIED. "This is how a serial killer lives!" "Alright, we can buy stuff!" They buy stuff, everyone is much happier.
posted by ifandonlyif at 6:59 PM on August 24, 2012 [14 favorites]

They make pear brandy in Maine. Bartlett. It does well in the freezer. FYI.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 7:24 PM on August 24, 2012

Another fine bachelor memory: some of my college friends had four 19" CRT televisions stacked, such that they looked like the new four-paned logo for Windows.

One television was hooked to the cable. Two televisions were hooked to NESs, each NES playing Marble Madness. The fourth and most important television was hooked to a Hi8 camcorder, recording all of the slovenly slothing-sloths playing Marble Madness against one another while watching cable television.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:43 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

That is the most beautiful idea ever.

It's better than the time I got the forty two inch tv out of the entertainment center, hooked my laptop up to it and played EVE Online.
posted by winna at 7:48 PM on August 24, 2012

I guess I do have one current bachelorette quirk that gets me odd looks from visitors. I have a hanging circular clothes drying rack that - due to certain practical considerations - i.e. that's where the hook is - dangles in my living area.

From it, at all times, hang a collection of festive and whimsically-colored hand-knit socks which have recently been washed and are drying. Or maybe they were washed two weeks ago, and I have so many brightly colored hand-knit socks that I haven't gotten 'round to taking the last batch down to wear them. HARD TO SAY.

But I think this is probably more of a "prolific knitter" thing than a "reveling in living alone" thing. Right? I don't know.

Maybe some other knitters can weigh in on this issue. I've lived so long alone, I honestly can't say if it's normal to have a bunch of brightly colored hand knit socks hanging right in the middle of your living room.

(Now I feel sad because everyone else is like, "I'M EATING NUTELLA AND DRINKING IN MY UNDERPANTS ON A LAKE" and I'm like, "I HAVE LOTS OF SOCKS.")
posted by ErikaB at 7:49 PM on August 24, 2012 [19 favorites]

P.S. I just consoled myself by eating a mouthful of whipping cream straight from the aerosol can. Because everybody knows it tastes best that way!
posted by ErikaB at 7:53 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Maybe some other knitters can weigh in on this issue. I've lived so long alone, I honestly can't say if it's normal to have a bunch of brightly colored hand knit socks hanging right in the middle of your living room.

It is not what hangs in the center of my living room, but it is a moral failing on my part that it is not so. My knitting sucks.
posted by winna at 7:55 PM on August 24, 2012

i am eating cholula off of fritos

i might go sit on top of the fridge next idk
posted by elizardbits at 8:00 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

my god i am such a catch
posted by elizardbits at 8:00 PM on August 24, 2012 [16 favorites]

When I moved to my current apartment, I made the deliberate decision to own only two of each dish and utensil. This has indeed had the desired outcome of limiting the quantity of dishes that can accumulate in my sink, and causes me to wash them much more frequently.
posted by NMcCoy at 8:02 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

My dad has this story about how he moves out just after college for a job. He rents a place that comes with everything. Not only does it have furniture, it has dishes. Lots and lots of dishes. So he gets in this habit of never washing dishes, because there's this whole other box of dishes just waiting to be used at any moment. They pile and pile, and he finally decides he's not going to live like this anymore. He washes all the dishes and puts them in the attic, saving a set for himself to use daily. Some time pasts and his landlady dies. Her family comes by to check in on everything. They eye him suspiciously when they notice he only has one set out in the kitchen. It took some convincing that (a) he didn't steal the dishes and (b) it was possible for a person to live life in such a way that it was possible to have too many dishes.
posted by ifandonlyif at 8:09 PM on August 24, 2012

Jesus christ, people, it isn't THAT hard to hold your wine cup* out of the water spray.

*Glass is dangerous in the shower. That's why I own a set of plastic stemless wine glasses.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:15 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

"plastic stemless wine glasses" is the perfect name for an album by a band called "Crate and Lonely"
posted by ifandonlyif at 8:19 PM on August 24, 2012 [17 favorites]

My idea of a fun bachelor life was not vacuuming once a week. I wasted those days, didn't I.
posted by deborah at 8:19 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

My mother-in-law once discovered my husband's brother had decided to sleep on a pile of dirty clothes (his own at least) rather than buy even an air mattress. He had the money. He just didn't care.

This was me in my first college apartment, except instead of a pile of dirty clothes, I was sleeping on my roommate's giant stuffed panda. We had a couch. Using it just didn't occur to me. (That sort of thing is a recurring theme in my life.)

I once listened to Louis CK talking about how was he was first living alone he accidentally dropped a bottle of hot sauce on the floor, and instead of cleaning it up he just stopped going near that part of the apartment. If I did not have roommates, that same thing would happen to me, except the avoided areas would gradually expand to cover every inch of floor space like a giant cartoon amoeba until I eventually starved to death in the upper right corner of my bed.
posted by granted at 8:34 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

This isn't gross, just weird, but when I was a "bachelor" (are we calling women bachelors now? Weird), I used to write foreign-language vocabulary words, with little illustrative pictures of stick people doing weird vocabulary-related stuff, all over my shower with dry erase markers so I could study them while I showered.

The first time my husband-to-be saw it, he thought I might be a serial killer.

(The first time he saw it, I was learning "angel" and "devil" and "flying" and "king" and "bird" and I forget what else, but basically with my craptastic art skills and the strange set of words that week, it looked like plans for a stick-man armageddon with be-winged robots dropping bombs on dudes.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:36 PM on August 24, 2012 [34 favorites]

I hope all of you drinking in the shower are wearing helmets because it's some of my favorite usernames and safety first OK?
posted by sweetkid at 8:42 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

A life without risks is hardly living.
posted by The Whelk at 8:44 PM on August 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

How on Earth do you guys keep your buttocks and thighs and nasty bits from sticking to a vinyl desk chair?

Yoga pants. (I don't actually like walking around bare-assed, tbh, and I especially don't like being bare-assed on furniture. Must be the Catholic upbringing. But yoga pants hide a multitude of sins.)
posted by octobersurprise at 8:44 PM on August 24, 2012

Yes, I think yoga pants are the bachelorette version of walking around in one's boxers.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:47 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

Put me down with the "always wearing pants" crew. I mean, if you consider sweatpants to be pants. Which they aren't really, but I feel very superior right now for having a pair on.

I mean, they have a big hole over the knee, and I have been wearing them for about three days. But still. Pants! Because I'm so evolved.
posted by ErikaB at 8:47 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

I....I guess I didn't really think I belonged in this community until I read this thread. I feel like I've finally come home. (though when I came home today in the non-figurative sense I enjoyed the hell out of a shower beer.)
posted by Drumhellz at 8:48 PM on August 24, 2012 [8 favorites]

Once I was lonely and broke in England in college, and all I had was a jar of Nutella and some corn flakes. Poured the cornflakes into a cup, scooped up Nutella, and ate them together, flavored with my lonesome tears while watching horrible BBC shows and listening to the cold indifferent rain.

OMG England. Shudder. But they do have good jarred food.
posted by sweetkid at 8:50 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

All I've got is that when I lived by myself I didn't have a dishwasher, so I would save my dirty dishes up, put them in a bucket, and walk over to my boyfriend's apartment to do them because *he* had a dishwasher.
posted by Lucinda at 8:52 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I remember being SO ATTACHED to my various feral habits and not having them was SERIOUSLY UPSETTING, like my pile of clothes that I call a bed is a good thing and the backpack with all my stuff is fine and really you're just complicating things! I just need this metal spork, and a singleoan, and chopsticks, and anything else I can shove into the many pockets, I'm well prepared if we ever have to camp on 23rd stree! And then I was broken of those habits until oh, let's get back from vacation with no work done on the renovatioin, oh we have to live inside the literal closet until work is finished? I am so there, I have an electric kettle, I can totally turn the eleventh floor into a decent camp while we work out water and power hookupd.

I still haven't painted the walls of the art,ent but I put that to more it's the office of two people who generate a lot of waste products and paper and for whom ' apartment' is just the bits bed and the work table. I once passed out on a pool table. I feel asleep standing up in a wardrobe. I don't really need a dedicated bedroom.
posted by The Whelk at 8:54 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, I think yoga pants are the bachelorette version of walking around in one's boxers.

Totally. It's funnier to talk about pantslessness, but what I actually object to are shirts.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:55 PM on August 24, 2012

Shirtcocking is just wrong. Go nude or go home
posted by The Whelk at 8:56 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

I just really like how so many bachelor things are the result of things not occurring to you. There's a John Mulaney bit about suddenly having a girlfriend. and she would point out things to him that never occurred to him before: "Yes, the bus driver shouldn't be so mean to me!"

Also, on the subject of dishwashing, you've never really washed dishes unless you've used a Hobart 1700 AM series warewasher. Everything else is spiting and pretending.
posted by ifandonlyif at 8:58 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

this is my favorite thread ever to happen on metafilter thank you
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 9:05 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Accomplishments that had never occurred to me as accomplishments before this thread:

having a bed
not shitting on kitchen appliances
knowing how to go pantless without problems
not drinking out of glass containers in the shower
someone paid for my furniture at some point in time

Things I want because of this thread:

a refrigerator without a cabinet over it (even though if it's a liquor cabinet)
a lake
a 4-tv/2-nes/1-spycam setup

Decisions I don't feel so bad about making:

baby carrots and pizza bagels for dinner

Thanks everyone, you're all awesome.
posted by elsp at 9:12 PM on August 24, 2012 [14 favorites]

Eating raw uncooked ramen was just the beginning.

Back in college, I calculated out that peanut butter had the best nutrient/$ ratio and attempted to subsist on only that (save for the occasional ramen as a treat). That lasted about a week and to this day, I cannot stand peanut butter to this day. (Which is unfortunate, because it really is quite cost-effective.)

However, this went a step further when I discovered pizza rice: rice + pasta sauce + cheese + raw egg + spices.

The raw ingredients last a long while - uncooked rice lasts forever; unopened pasta sauce and cheese lasts a good amount of time, and I have to let eggs sit around long enough for them to spoil. So this only requires a semi-monthly trip to the grocery store. Having a rice cooker is key, as this bachelor can't be bothered to babysit rice in a pan (there's beer to drink in the shower, after all). Cook the rice, then put in cheese, and nuke the two in the microwave until the cheese melts. (Melty cheese is so tasty!) Throw the pasta sauce and raw egg in, push a dash of whatever your spice-weasel has, and mix thoroughly. It also costs ~$3/meal depending on quality of components. (Lesser mortals foolishly put the egg in before microwaving, but that's just silly.)

It's easy to make, the spices make it taste good enough, and if you squint hard enough, it's kind of balanced. There's dairy and carbs and vegetable (if you count pasta-sauce). There's only the rice cooker and bowl you ate out of too, so fewer dishes.

(My college girlfriend complained that I was missing the point. She may have been right.)

Actually, this thread makes me feel quite accomplished! Not only do I have a bed frame, but as of two days ago I have a mattress that's actually the right size, so the wooden slats no longer show. (Okay, so I only did it impress a girl, but still...)
posted by fragmede at 9:34 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Thank you all for this thread; I feel so much less poorly about my own bachelor habits. fwiw, I cook from scratch almost always, the kitchen never goes 72 hours without being completely cleaned, I have a dry trash under the sink and wet trash* that gets thrown out every morning or is at least tied up for later disposal, and the toilet and sink gets bleached and scrubbed at least once a week. My shower stall is utter fail, though and there are way too many empty bottles of liquor stacked in front of the pantry.

The downside is, I think I now know what potential dating partners might be assuming about me.

A small 2.5-3L jug of bleach; once you've used up the bleach, cut the top off so you get a bucket. I've been keeping an eye out for a better bucket, but nothing has beaten the free cut-off bleach bottle yet. I keep thinking fancy mesh stationary bucket, but I bet they'll rust within the week. They're the perfect size for most clear plastic bags that you get at the supermarket to put produce in - before lining the bucket, fluff it with air and twist the top to make a balloon. If no air leaks out, it's a good liner.

Yes, I also have many empty old CD/DVD cakeboxes with the spindle cut off storing random loose stuff. Does anyone know where I can get more empty cakeboxes, for free?
posted by porpoise at 9:59 PM on August 24, 2012

When I shower and have dishes to wash, I take them into the shower with me and a beer when I have some.
A part of me thinks this is genius, and that is the part that half-heartedly cleans the shower every week or two while taking a shower. Combine that with washing handwash-only clothes while in the shower, and I could consolidate so many chores into shower time! ...Surely there are reasons that this is a bad idea, but this sounds like my most brilliant household chores innovation right now.

I'm not sure if someone responded to this already, and i'm not about to read 200 comments of the bachelor life, but there's a whole Seinfeld episode where Kramer has just that epiphany.
posted by palbo at 10:23 PM on August 24, 2012

fwiw, I cook from scratch almost always,

I wish I could do this but I always wind up getting lazy and using ingredients instead.
posted by aubilenon at 10:35 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Like tonight, I ate a quesadilla with an egg on it.

I have to not buy peanut butter, because otherwise I eat peanut butter with a spoon for meals. I don't eat the spoon.

Raw ramen is awesome though. My roommates and I ate a lot of that in college. We didn't eat the flavor packets so eventually we had a whole box full. On the weekend of "Springfest" one of us noticed that one of the dorm "free condom" boxes was empty so we just left all the flavor packets in there. I still think "oriental flavor" is hilarious.
posted by aubilenon at 10:40 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

I think I love the bachelorette frog lifestyle, you guys. Ice cream for dinner, anyone?
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:41 PM on August 24, 2012

Missing:

1) Talking drunkenly aloud to Metafilter threads so as not to have my real opinions immortalized for all time...followed by more wine sipping...and then very serious commenting on AskMefi involving too-detailed self-confessions of sexual habits.

2) Meals in a pot involving hot dogs, boxed mac and cheese, ketchup (or hot sauce) and maybe frozen peas when I feel guilty for not eating my vegetables.

3) Law & Order marathons that make me contemplate creating a youtube compilation of you'll-get-raped-in-jail jokes.

(habits gender neutral)
posted by whimsicalnymph at 10:42 PM on August 24, 2012

As long as we're sharing recipes, an old girlfriend of mine introduced me to ricecrons. (We liked referring to corn as crons. Like pr0n. Anyway.) Boil rice, throw in corn and lemon pepper, throw in browned and drained hamburger, and some butter to keep it all from sticking. Quick, easy, and shockingly satisfying.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:55 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

A couple of days ago I saw a package of chicken hearts at the grocery store, and ever since I have been having visions of grilling them on a skewer, maybe with a sesame/ginger marinade. Yum, hearts...

They aren't bad at all. Better than gizzards I'd say. I'd like to know where I can buy songbirds to bake into a pie. Do I have to go the a pet store? Or maybe something like finches pressed in aspic.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:59 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a six-pack and some almonds for dinner, with the occasional bagged salad if there's enough time between episodes of Arrested Development.

I need to stop lurking at and start participating at SA.
posted by bendy at 11:08 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Packet of tuna in oil, spicy V-8 and string cheese. Maybe an apple. Dinner. No dish needed.

In college I made hot dogs in my coffee maker. I had no hotplate or microwave for some time.
posted by jopreacher at 11:12 PM on August 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

There was a period of a year when I was 21 that I would only clean the toilet after I got sick from drinking too much. I have never had a cleaner commode than I did during that year.
posted by Drumhellz at 11:12 PM on August 24, 2012

I am smugly reading all these tales having vacuumed for the first time in months. I'm just waiting for the clothes in the dryer. I will hang then up too. But I'm not wearing any pants and eating the sixth popsicle of the night.

they're sugar-free after all
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:19 PM on August 24, 2012

Microwave bratwurst wrapped in a whole-wheat tortilla with a slice of cheese.

Half a chopped onion and a handful of beef jerky thrown in the ramen pot as you turn the heat on to boil it.

Kraft easy-mac (2 pouches), with a tablespoon of mayo and a small can of peas. (If you can be arsed to actually cook, add hamburger and tortillas for Cheeseburger Macarritos.)

Garlic hummus and Branston Pickle, stirred slightly (not homogenously mixed)

Fresh-ground black pepper on everything.
posted by rifflesby at 11:23 PM on August 24, 2012

Bedsheets for curtains. Fastened to the window frame with thumbtacks.
posted by Spatch at 11:31 PM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Bedsheets for curtains.

Our neighbors complained about how ugly that was and our landlord was like "okay look, I'll buy you curtains..."
posted by aubilenon at 11:42 PM on August 24, 2012

Bedsheets for curtains. Fastened to the window frame with thumbtacks.

Oh my God, I still do this.
posted by phaedon at 1:41 AM on August 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm having serious flashbacks to living in the first student flat, where we had to share one shower and one toilet (A shower and a toilet? Luxury!) per floor and I lived on the ground floor, so everybody who came and visited used our loo. And I got depressed and started staying in my room all the time, reading The Wheel of Time and watching Hill Street Blues and Are You Being Served marathons. Anyway, these rooms had no sinks and the toilet was out of reach, so you know when on a long car journey and there's no place to use the rest room but you do have an empty coke bottle?

Yeah....
posted by MartinWisse at 2:13 AM on August 25, 2012

... Tonight I tested how long a single Dixie cup could be used until it lost the ability to hold water ... because I was too lazy to walk four feet to the right and open the cabinet to get a new one.

And yes, expensive bondage rope DOES belong in a nicely coiled pile on top of my stack of spare gigabit ethernet switches.. and another coil over here on top of the guitar magazines ... Oh, there's the gaffer tape I was looking for...
posted by mrbill at 3:43 AM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

Notionally, I could say I have you all beat: last night husband was out and I was too lazy to cook for myself, so I ate the dog's food. With a little mayonnaise and a glass of wine.

Please don't let the fact that we boil chicken breasts for our dog's food taint the dissolute glory of my bachelorette night.
posted by taz at 4:18 AM on August 25, 2012 [10 favorites]

I lived in my last apartment for over five years. I heard a rumor that both the stove and the oven were functional. It would have been hard to test, since someone would have had to call the gas company to turn that shit on in order to find out.
posted by dogwalker at 4:18 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Apposite thread. Spouse is away for the weekend, pizza boxes piling up, trying to live in a single corner of the lounge room so I don't have to clean other parts.
But you Americans! You look funny at me if I have a beer with Friday lunch, yet you go home for a cocktail in the shower?!
posted by bystander at 5:32 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's not drinking if no one see it, duh.
posted by The Whelk at 5:41 AM on August 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

I lived in the South all my life, because God favours me above all other men, and now that I am north of the wall I am having a hard time recalibrating the part of my brain that deals with alcohol customs and ritual. People drink at work here! At the dog park! Great! But SO WEIRD. I feel the urge to start distilling something marginally toxic in the basement in order to restore a decent amount of liquor shame.
posted by samofidelis at 5:48 AM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

Someone has to fess up to reading The Bachelor Home Companion. I thought that book was funny as shit when I was 23 and living in a squat with 10 other people and 1 shower. Less funny 10 years later when I was fresh out of a LTR, living in my parent's rental and eyeing off the bottle of tomato sauce and thinking "emergency soup".

Oh, and the 3 months I spent living in a dingy apartment with an air mattress that deflated over the course of the night were the most miserable of my life. Buy a damn bed.
posted by arha at 5:53 AM on August 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

My husband just told me he used to wash his clothes on his body in the communal shower, take them off, squish them with his feet, and hang them to dry so they'd be ready the next day.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:55 AM on August 25, 2012

There was one time in college when the bathroom in the flat I shared with four other bachelors stank so bad it made me throw up when I walked in. Granted, I was feeling a bit ill to begin with, but still.
posted by "But who are the Chefs?" at 6:08 AM on August 25, 2012

I married right out of college to a woman who was not only obsessive compulsive but of Germanic descent. I never got the chance to develop any bachelor skills and reading this thread makes me want to make sure all the dirty dishes are in the dishwasher, the litter box is cleaned, and then dust the living room.
posted by Ber at 6:33 AM on August 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

I lived as a bachelor for most of my college years. Perhaps it was being raised in a middle-class home run by my mom, who was a nurse, and my dad, who was ex-military, but Jesus Fucking Christ. I'm a straight dude, fairly masculine (boxer, martial artist, woodworker, whatever). I was roundly mocked by roommates in my early 20s because I actually did the dishes, wiped down the counters with cleaning spray and paper towels, and swept/mopped/vacuumed once a week or so. Moving out and living with my girlfriend(s) over the course of my mid-20s, followed by living alone, and eventually marrying and buying my own home with my wife was such a pleasant change of pace.

In all sincerity, what is the appeal of living in squalor?
posted by ellF at 7:26 AM on August 25, 2012 [5 favorites]

(Sorry, a sentence got lost there: I was roundly mocked for being "gay" by roommates in my early 20s, etc., etc.. Which, considering the context, said more about their paralyzing homophobia than anything else.
posted by ellF at 7:27 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

We were somewhat messy as students, but the only reason we had a rat was because we lived in the country. The landlord's cat and a late night vigil with ice axes soon took care if that. Well, the cat took care of the rat, the ice axes were for personal protection, it was a big rat.
posted by arcticseal at 7:30 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, in my experience the difference between "bachelorhood" and "bachelorettehood" is that dudes are encouraged to celebrate their squalor, for some reason (cleaning is feminized, I guess). As I implied earlier, left to my own devices I would live in complete squalor, but I'm not proud of the fact that I'm apparently incapable of properly caring for my domicile.
posted by muddgirl at 7:32 AM on August 25, 2012

The majority of comments in this thread don't describe living in squalor, tbh. It's just weird eating habits and hilarious dressing habits and lots and lots of drunken tomfoolery. (The SA thread however, is a filth riddled frathouse of doom.)

Bedsheets for curtains.

I have trashbags taped over the window in my bedroom because I couldn't find any kind of blinds/curtains to satisfy my need for NO SUNLIGHT EVER EVER IN THE SLEEPY PLACE. Luckily the window faces the building next door so there are no cops banging on my door with grow room suspicions.
posted by elizardbits at 8:03 AM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

I married right out of college to a woman who was not only obsessive compulsive but of Germanic descent.

Ha! My husband knows I am stressed out or depressed or angry if he walks in on me scrubbing the bejesus out of something incredibly stupid, like say the metal strip around the front of the sink. That is when you back away and leave the room quietly...

Wearing pants, though? Totally for suckers. In fact I'm running around in nothing but a decrepit strappy jersey nightgownish thing right now because ugh, pants. And I should be cleaning the house but I'm not feeling up to it quite yet. Thanks, Metafilter!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:11 AM on August 25, 2012

Metafilter: lots and lots of drunken tomfoolery.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 8:11 AM on August 25, 2012

fragmede, I thought I was the only person to invent pizza rice! It is amazing, because pretty much anything goes well in it.
posted by winna at 8:20 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, in my experience the difference between "bachelorhood" and "bachelorettehood" is that dudes are encouraged to celebrate their squalor, for some reason (cleaning is feminized, I guess).

I feel like there's a solid social sciences PhD thesis to be wrung out of the differences between Foul Bachelor Frog and Foul Bachelorette Frog.

Foul Bachelorette Frog finally gets to indulge her libido for squalor, but so much of it is gendered squalor about menstruation or not shaving her legs. Also, I'm not sure what it means that typically Foul Bachelorette Frog has a boyfriend or casual sex, while Foul Bachelor Frog's erotic relationships are to hand lotion and 31 tabs in Firefox.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 8:28 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Famous squalorees.
posted by bukvich at 8:51 AM on August 25, 2012

When I had an issue with storage and file overcrowding in my office at work, I thought of putting up a sign by my desk reading "Collyer & Collyer, Attorneys at Law." I didn't want to spend all day explaining it, though.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:59 AM on August 25, 2012 [4 favorites]

Last night my husband was working--my evening consisted of eating nuked apple pie for dinner, and falling asleep on the recliner while watching Arrested Development.
posted by I'm Brian and so's my wife! at 9:04 AM on August 25, 2012

I'm in the "Yes, this makes me feel so healthy" camp. I clean my microwave! I do my dishes in the sink! Daily! Though I've had a few incidents here & there, by and large I'm living a very safe and unweird bachelor life. Some of the worst craziness in my first place I had to myself was during the final weeks of writing my dissertation. My friends had a key to my place and took video, with a few added inside jokes, for a roast. It's findable on youtube if you know my real name.

And now I want Nutella, wine, and a lake. All I've got is schnitzel.
posted by knile at 9:18 AM on August 25, 2012

Bedsheets for curtains.

Bedsheets are expensive! And who has *extra* bedsheets??
posted by gjc at 9:49 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Forgive me, Metafilter, for I am prissy. It's been several months since I last spent the day on the couch, watching crap tv & eating cheese poofs. I do like the stories though.

I am one of those weirdos that scrubs everything, feeling cathartic as I am cleaning, but I like an afternoon in a tub with a drink as much as everyone else. Cleaning is OK with wine, I swear.
posted by kellyblah at 10:04 AM on August 25, 2012

Bedsheets?

I mean, I know what a bedsheet is, but what's the extra "s" for?
posted by mrgoat at 10:06 AM on August 25, 2012 [4 favorites]

I thought window covering was what flat sheets were for?
posted by restless_nomad at 10:15 AM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yes, I also have many empty old CD/DVD cakeboxes with the spindle cut off storing random loose stuff. Does anyone know where I can get more empty cakeboxes, for free?

Home depot does have plastic shoeboxes at $1 each. I bought 60.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:30 AM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

brb I'm off to Home Depot.
posted by winna at 10:37 AM on August 25, 2012

Incidentally, if any of you all are Reaper mini nerds, they have a truly ludicrous kickstarter running out in the next couple of hours - for $100 dollars you can get more than four hundred miniatures.
posted by winna at 11:00 AM on August 25, 2012

I've never lived alone, but have developed parallel girlbatchelor skillz. When left alone at home I generally go on the reach diet. This means I will eat anything I can reach from where I happen to be lying. I am also happy to hear about ricecrons, as they sound similar to my own insanely satisfying makeshift dinner. Old rice someone else made at some point is the main rice component. Chop up a pack of bacon in tiny bits with a scissors. Fry. Add a can of corn. Fry till the corn gets all sticky, and you get this kinda brown gluey stuff. Add the previously described rice. EAT EVERY BITE! Yea, it's like food for ten people, but it all just dissapears... oh god.. I have to go make some now.
posted by Iteki at 11:03 AM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

for $100 dollars you can get more than four hundred miniatures.

Actually I misread it - it's only two hundred and forty miniatures. I think that my natural enthusiasm for painting little plastic zombies and elves and dragons got the better of me.

I will have enough miniatures to paint for the rest of my life, not counting the sixty or so lying around that I haven't yet painted.
posted by winna at 11:31 AM on August 25, 2012

I've never lived alone, but have developed parallel girlbatchelor skillz.

I maintain that girlbatchelor skillz do not include cooking. My husband is gone for like two weeks and in that two weeks there will be nothing made with fire. Complete cooking vacation. Tonight's dinner? Cashews and olives.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:41 AM on August 25, 2012 [4 favorites]

Some of this stuff is funny because lord knows we all regress when left by ourselves for lengths of time, but damn, some of yall are just nasty and it is not cute.
posted by cashman at 11:51 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Until I moved in with my girlfriend, my living spaces were disaster zones.

I would never clean, never do dishes. Clothes everywhere. I would often forget to eat and bathe. I'm a total slob by nature and I manage to keep it reined in now -- just barely -- out of respect for my girlfriend.

One thing that's helped is I have discovered the joys of watching Netflix Instant while taking a bath. I put my laptop on the closed toilet seat next to the bathtub, crack open a beer and have a ball. Buffy makes bath-time so much fun!
posted by brundlefly at 11:55 AM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

I maintain that girlbatchelor skillz do not include cooking. My husband is gone for like two weeks and in that two weeks there will be nothing made with fire. Complete cooking vacation. Tonight's dinner? Cashews and olives.

I'm forever grateful that my parents both cooked for the family. I have a friend who just got back from a two-month work trip in Ecuador, while his girlfriend stayed in the US. Grand total of times she cooked during that period?

Once. At a barbecue. And even then I believe she burned her food to carbon.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:11 PM on August 25, 2012

Really you should be in the bathtub drinking red wine out of a coffee mug
posted by The Whelk at 12:12 PM on August 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm just amazed at this idea of "keeping it reigned in for the benefit of other people" idea.
posted by bleep at 12:40 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

I am completely unable to imagine a scenario where I am unable to wait until my shower is complete before imbibing, but I typically go weeks between alcoholic drinks. A shower bong, on the other hand, might have promise.

I too have sheets up over my front windows. Part of the reason I chose this house was the plethora of really big windows that let in lots of light, after living with smeone who wanted a cave-like atmosphere that I found depressing. So, for the first year and a half that I lived here, I had naked windows and slept on first an air mattress and then later a couch. Then I started dating and learned that other people really thought beds and windowcoverings were important, so up went the twin sheets and I bought a bed. I actually have drapes for the windows, but I keep saying that I'm going to repaint the walls and it doesn't make sense to put up the hardware and hang the drapes until the walls are painted. One of these days.
posted by notashroom at 1:15 PM on August 25, 2012

Some of this stuff is funny because lord knows we all regress when left by ourselves for lengths of time, but damn, some of yall are just nasty and it is not cute.

What I find particularly interesting is that everyone draws the lines between "haha I totally do that too," "OMG I do that but I would never tell anyone" and "ok now you're just gross" in totally different places.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:16 PM on August 25, 2012 [12 favorites]

Ideally you should try to turn the entire shower into a bong like a walkin hookah.
posted by The Whelk at 1:19 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Now there's a thought. Or maybe just a giant steam vaporizer.
posted by notashroom at 1:24 PM on August 25, 2012

Oh, and the pants thing? I'm frequently in yoga pants or boxers at home, but my ex-husband used to lounge around pantsless while wearing a shirt, which both baffled me and made me want to avoid sharing furniture with him. I really don't get the appeal of wearing a shirt so tight it bunches up around your armpits while your junk is all out, lolling around. If I'm going down to a single item of clothing, it'll be some form of drawers, whether boxers or panties.
posted by notashroom at 1:32 PM on August 25, 2012 [4 favorites]

A shower bong, on the other hand, might have promise.

Not a 'shroom?
posted by acb at 1:35 PM on August 25, 2012

Nope. :) I'm actually allergic.*

Technically, not allergic, because I don't have a life-threatening response, but mushrooms of any kind are an emetic for me.
posted by notashroom at 1:42 PM on August 25, 2012

my ex-husband used to lounge around pantsless while wearing a shirt, which both baffled me and made me want to avoid sharing furniture with him.

Porky Piggin it.
posted by cashman at 1:42 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is why people have branded Star Trek science officer robes. All of the Comfort, none of the junk winging
posted by The Whelk at 1:46 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

I can get behind a robe. Or sitting on a t-shirt or towel or newspaper or something. It's not the nudity I object to, just so you keep the skid mark zone and ball sweat off the furniture.
posted by notashroom at 1:57 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

What I find particularly interesting is that everyone draws the lines between "haha I totally do that too," "OMG I do that but I would never tell anyone" and "ok now you're just gross" in totally different places.

Some things like

the skid mark zone and ball sweat off the furniture.

are hopefully universally nasty. Cause damn.
posted by cashman at 2:00 PM on August 25, 2012

my ex-husband used to lounge around pantsless while wearing a shirt

there is a huge askme on afterpantsing somewhere
posted by elizardbits at 2:10 PM on August 25, 2012

BEHOLD THE AFTERPANTS
posted by elizardbits at 2:11 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

I remember being a little surprised by all the afterpantsers (somehow that seems like a German word to me, affterpanzers) in that thread. I am, at this moment, in yoga pants and a Joe Boxer top, which is a very common version of afterpants for me. Actually, I am still in my pajamas because it is Saturday and I don't have to go anywhere and when I was done with coffee and about to get in the shower, my daughter's male friend showed up (in time to catch the moon argument) and I didn't want to get in the shower til he left, which turned out to be about two hours later, by which time I'd thrown in the towel.
posted by notashroom at 2:19 PM on August 25, 2012

I think I have a weekend shower deadline.
posted by notashroom at 2:20 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

oh god it's 530 and i still smell like the gym

sob
posted by elizardbits at 2:21 PM on August 25, 2012

After pants sounds like a peak oil type situatio like we'll read books about the world Post Pants
posted by The Whelk at 2:21 PM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

Post-apantsolypse?
posted by notashroom at 2:24 PM on August 25, 2012

I actually have a pair of yoga pants, purchased on sale at Le Target years ago. So thanks for that!

Also, Cashman: Thank you for that feedback! I really enjoyed it!!! :-)
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 2:25 PM on August 25, 2012

Pantsadammerung
posted by The Whelk at 2:27 PM on August 25, 2012 [4 favorites]

Due to a partner that has and will be away for months after years of marriage I am reliving my bachelorette days. It was amazing how short a time it took to devolve (evolve?) into them. Dishes were done every night now I think I have some things on the counter that have been there a few months.

I didn't do laundry for a couple of weeks, which ended up in a laundry marathon. which led to a pile of clean clothes on my bed, which meant that I couldn't sleep in it. I ended up on the couch that night and have been there ever since. It's just way easier to see all my clothes on my bed rather then go through drawers. Plus on the couch I have the tv and the kitchen and bathroom are closer.

I'm a good cook but cooking from scratch for one just isn't as satisfying. I eat out of cans and my most elaborate cooked meal is potatos/hashbrowns fried, then egg, cheese and sometimes salsa mixed in and cooked. Now since I've started working at a restaurant my home eating usually are just peanut butter and jelly in a wrap if I need a meal and icecream for dessert.

Vaccuming? Dusting? What is that?

I miss my partner but I'm really enjoying being alone again. My biggest stress is the thought that he might one day show up for a surprise visit. He would be absolutely horrified. For months I've been telling myself I should get my house at least CLOSE to what it's like when we're together but I have yet to do it.

I've never tried shower drinking but it's now on my list of things to do.

Oh and pants. I end up pantless and shirtless quite a bit. I bet he would mind if that habit stayed.
posted by Jalliah at 2:46 PM on August 25, 2012

On the tidy side, real curtains are a self respect thing for me. I might have a filthy house, but having curtains on all the windows means I'm a functional adult.
posted by winna at 2:53 PM on August 25, 2012

P.S. I just consoled myself by eating a mouthful of whipping cream straight from the aerosol can. Because everybody knows it tastes best that way!

Doesn't everybody do that? Proud to say I taught my four kids to do it before they could walk. Although it's addicting doing it that way--while house-sitting last week last week for a bachelorette friend, I could hardly keep from putting my host's whipped cream can to my lips. The only thing that stopped me was the idea that she probably already had done it. Without pants.

In the summer I usually come inside and drop my jeans/shorts right inside the door. This makes it awkward, as I have to dance around in the corner away from the windows where the curtains are open putting them on when someone knocks.

Bedsheets for curtains.

Our neighbors complained about how ugly that was and our landlord was like "okay look, I'll buy you curtains..."

Fools! Hang the printed side out and make pleats with 15-20 thumbtacks. Your squalor is then hidden from the neighbors. (Although they may question your taste re: Superman or Dora the Explorer curtains in the living room.)

This thread has made me realize I will never again fear making a typo or accidentally writing it's for its and there for their or than for then. I know the difference. Everybody makes mistakes. But now I know that the asshole grammar nazi calling me out is sitting in his busted office chair without pants leaving skidmarks while eating six day leftover pizza and drinking Coors out of a sippy cup.

But please stop confusing affect and effect.

And for shits's sake, will you people learn the difference between reign and rein? The phrase is rein it in, not reign it in! To rein is to control, to reign is to rule.

Now excuse me, I'm going to put my pants on and open up a can of olives for dinner.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:55 PM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh god, the clean laundry on the bed cycle. Once last winter I realized I'd been sleeping on the couch for OVER A MONTH. Did I feel shame? Of course not. But I felt a little stupid.
posted by elizardbits at 2:55 PM on August 25, 2012

Post-apantsolypse?

Pantsadammerung

Pantsnarök
posted by zombieflanders at 3:01 PM on August 25, 2012 [4 favorites]

Oh god, the clean laundry on the bed cycle.

Y'all either have smaller beds or more clothes than I do. I just shove it over to the cats' side of the bed. They certainly don't object.
posted by restless_nomad at 3:06 PM on August 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

But please stop confusing affect and effect.

Yaar! Did I misspell that, then? Preachy with an admission of same does not get you a hall pass. I say this as a reader of Upstairs, Downstairs. I knew I can't iie, or lay, but by gum, my Dad was an English teacher.

I knows the rules and I breaks them. Sue me. And thank you for that feedback!! :-)
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 3:08 PM on August 25, 2012

I ended up on the couch that night and have been there ever since.

At one point in my life I started sleeping on my sofa and then, for reasons of comfort and convenience, just kept sleeping there for the next year. And then, just as mysteriously, I went back to bed. I call that "My Sofa Year" and if I were Harvey Pekar I'd turn it into a graphic novel.
posted by octobersurprise at 4:07 PM on August 25, 2012 [8 favorites]

BlueHorse: "And for shits's sake, will you people learn the difference between reign and rein? The phrase is rein it in, not reign it in! To rein is to control, to reign is to rule."

*checks my usage*

Oh, thank goodness...
posted by brundlefly at 4:35 PM on August 25, 2012

Little late to the party, ain'tcha? As I am living on a lake. With beef or veg alternatives, and three kinds of mustard, and a maple syrup bacon topped cake inspired by Brandon Blatcher asking about a bacon donut, so now: it comes full circle.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 4:44 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have actually eaten each one of the following items by itself as a meal, straight from the can/jar:

condensed bean w/bacon soup
Nutella
Dijon mustard
dill pickle relish
Newman's Own marinara sauce

Remembered a few more:

marshmallow fluff
tartar sauce
Ovaltine
maraschino cherries
Pillsbury cake frosting
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:54 PM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

A shower bong, on the other hand, might have promise.

Not a 'shroom?

omg, shower shrooms! we had shower shrooms in college!

_{seriously, there were mushrooms that started growing in the corner of the shower stall}
posted by indubitable at 5:07 PM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

i am eating tequila for dinner

fuck everything
posted by elizardbits at 5:08 PM on August 25, 2012 [6 favorites]

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter

Baby, that's nasty.

I'm having cream of broccoli soup, some hummus and pretzel chips. It was some of that imagine brand soup, and I'm a little apprehensive. Their butternut squash soup is good, but the broccoli soup might be bad. I am drinking some Grüner Veltliner - the wine dude at the grocery store tricks me by standing there offering samples of things I'd like to drink, which I think is not quite playing the game.
posted by winna at 5:23 PM on August 25, 2012

the secret to managing the pile of clothes on the bed is to transfer it to the chair before flopping down and passing out and then transferring it back when you wake up
posted by indubitable at 5:28 PM on August 25, 2012

Pizza boxes make a hillside
Pizza boxes made of icky-yucky
Pizza boxes, what a thrill ride!
See what's on them, it's a game:

There's some pink fuzz and a green sludge
And some blue gunk and some smelly stuff
And they're all made of cheese and cardboard
And they all require death by flame
posted by psoas at 5:29 PM on August 25, 2012 [9 favorites]

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter

Baby, that's nasty.

In my defense, I didn't eat a whole tub or anything, just a few spoonfuls. It's actually super tasty relative to other oleomargarines, on account of the cream.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:30 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

You shouldn't know this.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:42 PM on August 25, 2012 [7 favorites]

Years ago, I had a friend Kim whose parents were retired and mostly stayed home and spent time with their cat, who was enormous. Her name was Fat Olive. Eventually, Fat Olive couldn't wash her hindparts anymore, because she could no longer reach them. Kim's dad, however, believed she was just being lazy and not wanting to wash something that had gotten a bit nasty, so he sprayed her under her tail with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray, to tasty her up. Well, it didn't work, but as a consolation prize, I did a little photoshopping and got him a little gift with an image on it of a big bottle of I Can't Believe It's Not Butt Spray.
posted by notashroom at 5:51 PM on August 25, 2012 [5 favorites]

Yes, iamkimiam is correct that taste-testing the margarines is probably not a good plan. But I've made sandwiches out of Heinz 57 sauce, so I guess I cannot judge.
posted by winna at 5:51 PM on August 25, 2012

i am not sure how i feel about this tale of nonconsensual feline assbuttery
posted by elizardbits at 6:17 PM on August 25, 2012 [9 favorites]

He did end up giving the cat a proper bath after the fact, which ought to be enough punishment for anyone committing nonconsensual feline assbuttery.
posted by notashroom at 6:21 PM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

i am not sure how i feel about this tale of nonconsensual feline assbuttery

Every cat I have ever met would love you forever if you were to spray its ass with Tasty Butter Spray. (I mean, they seem to think ass tastes great, and they think butter tastes great, so who wouldn't want to combine the two great flavors?) So in this case, the only thing nonconsensual was the cat's inability to lick the butter spray, poor thing.
posted by Forktine at 6:26 PM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

And of course the girls always run free at home.
posted by bendy at 6:43 PM on August 25, 2012

My dad is home alone while my mom is out of town for two weeks. You want to talk about bachelorhood? They've been married for 39 years, and he's incapable of taking care of himself. Just last week I called him and invited him out to dinner (because, um, my bachelor husband and I may not have gotten out of bed until 4:30 p.m.) and we all met up because we hadn't eaten anything of substance since lunch the previous day.

The thing about my crazy mother (okay, there are so many) is that she refuses to allow a microwave in the house. This means that when she is not around to cook, my dad, who is incapable of cooking because he forgets what he's doing in the middle of it, eats what I refer to as "the Man's Meal." It consists of any combination of the following:

--frozen bananas
--yogurt
--smoothies made of frozen bananas and yogurt
--frozen peas
--eggs

This time, however, it did not go that way.

Madamina: So in the 48 hours since Mom left, you've eaten a whole lot of nothing... and tortillas? Not okay.
Dad: That's not true! I had a smoothie, half a container of vanilla yogurt, three beers... and some tortillas.

So I finally went out to St. Vinnie's and bought him a microwave. Mom is going to killllll meeeeeee. Dad, however, has been eating actual food (because I also purchased that as well).

Why do I have to buy his food? Because this is a guy who can fall off his bike and stick his immovable dominant hand in a pitcher of ice water for eight hours, while running a conference, not realizing that he might have broken his wrist in three places.

Today, I got out of bed at 5:30.
posted by Madamina at 7:59 PM on August 25, 2012 [5 favorites]

So, once I started piling my folded laundry on one side of the bed, then I would sleep on the other. But then I added more laundry. And more laundry. And then one day I realized I was sort of digging sleeping in a deep nest of folded clothes, so I added some folded blankets on the bottom where my feet went. And then I got scared because while I'm OK with dirty dishes and needing to dust, starting to sleep in a giant nest of folded clothes just seemed like starting down a bad slippery slope, so I stopped doing that. But I still think about it longingly.
posted by SweetTeaAndABiscuit at 8:20 PM on August 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

*uncomfortable clearing of throat*

Truth be told, even now it wouldn't be beyond reason for a surprise visitor to think that the mister and I were still bachelors. I have no idea when we last vacuumed.
posted by deborah at 8:25 PM on August 25, 2012

Do you people not have laundry services in your part of the world? Granted then they pile up into shiny folded cellophane drifts on the couch, but they're there.
posted by The Whelk at 8:29 PM on August 25, 2012

Laundry service doesn't seem to be offered in the suburbs.

The worst part about doing your own laundry (but not folding it and putting it away) is the moment you realize that you've been mixing up the dirty clothes pile and the clean clothes pile for the past week, and you'll have to start all over again at the beginning.
posted by muddgirl at 8:40 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

no the worst part is when your partner, during a long visit to a house with a washing machine, accidentally shrinks your clothes juuuust enough to make you think you're somehow gaining weight despite the 3-hour runs and then you manically eat nothing but protein shakes for a week until you notice the pants are also somehow short and wait-a-second here
posted by The Whelk at 8:44 PM on August 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

I still remember the first time I had an "Oh shit, all my whites have been dyed red" moment. I thought that was just a comedic fiction.
posted by muddgirl at 8:45 PM on August 25, 2012

and they never come out bright red, just "left a red sock in the wash" pink /eddie izzard
posted by The Whelk at 8:46 PM on August 25, 2012

As someone who grew up (to put it kindly) rather isolated and kind of strange, I've always been fascinated by How Other People Really Live. So I want to thank you all for the greatest metafilter thread of all time.

OF ALL TIME.

My only regret is not reading this in the bathtub with a drink, but I can't risk the inevitable drowning of yet another phone. Sigh.
posted by Space Kitty at 8:59 PM on August 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

You only have a dirty clothes pile and clean clothes pile?

What about the "dirty but not too dirty to wear once more" pile?

Heck if you pull the clothes from the bottom of that pile, they're practically clean.
posted by rifflesby at 9:07 PM on August 25, 2012 [5 favorites]

See, this is why I go pantsless at home! Just chuck them in the 'gently used' pile and after a night's rest and a little rubbing alcohol mist, they're good to go the next day. Especially useful since it doubles the amount of time between laundry runs.
posted by mikurski at 9:14 PM on August 25, 2012

Some memories from my bachelor student days below. They generally revolve around 'things happening' rather than food or hygiene issues - we were far too interested in women to go out stinking in dirty clothes:

1: Realising that the stove top/hob had been filling up with grease under the electric rings due to a bent frying pan leaking grease out. Thinking "we should clean that out" out loud to each other only for about a month before it went up in flames about two feet over our cooking food because we had three rings on full and finally got it to combustible heat levels. Took us a few minutes to put it out and we had to repaint the blackened ceiling.

2: Having the engine out of my car sitting on the kitchen table for a couple of weeks while I saved up to buy the parts to repair it. We also spilt some petrol out of the carburettor onto the kitchen floor while rebuilding that and figured the best way to clean that up was with a match. When I went to rebuild my engine I found dried up pasta in one of the pistons so I had to re-clean everything for the rebuild. The nerve!

I have a whole stack of amusing things from that year - everyone else had some horror stories of their student pads, but we always won because they knocked our house down after we'd stayed in it for 15 months. We apparently ran the open fire so hot (it provided hot water for the heating and everything) that the brick backing had crumbled and warped and the chimney was unsafe or something. The best year of my life, that house was.
posted by Brockles at 9:23 PM on August 25, 2012 [5 favorites]

This thread inspired me to clean my bathroom. Hopefully that will keep my SO from realizing what a terrible slob I really am.
posted by entropyiswinning at 9:44 PM on August 25, 2012

Okay the system I've developed since being single again is that the clean clothes go into a pile on the side of the bed nearest the bedroom door, and the dirty ones get piled up on the far side near the opposite wall. This is easy to remember because 'you're on your way out so put on some clean clothes.' This thread kind of reminds me that I ought to maybe sign in and check SA once in a while.

And Brockles, whatup, engine rebuilding in the house buddy? Mine was a 1972 microbus engine in the living room of a townhouse shared with 7 people. We'd pulled the deli counter and cabinetry from some nearby restaurant renovation out of the dumpster and wound up using it for an entertainment center as well as the workbench for rebuilding the engine. At one point me and two other guys held the block upside down in the common room trying to roll out a loose piece that had fallen in. Good times...
posted by mcrandello at 11:30 PM on August 25, 2012

Also at that same place we found a coffin floating in the pond behind the apartment building. Now, I'd recognized this thing because when I was still a student I lived across the lake and remember the time the TKE's living next to us brought it home. They were bouncers at some bar and it was bought as a prop for a halloween party. This must have been 4-5 years previous. So here's this cheapest-model-available (and never been used) coffin floating in a retention pond overcrowded with algae and cattails and plecostomus fish, just waiting for new owners or possibly a blurb on the evening news. So of course I wade halfway through the thing and recover it, rinse the bottom off and let it dry in the sun. That thing was the best coffee table I've ever owned and the 2nd best night's sleep I've ever had.
posted by mcrandello at 11:58 PM on August 25, 2012 [8 favorites]

I don't think my home has ever seen me fully dressed unless I was just about to walk out of the front door. I live in a camisole and bloomers or a white cotton nightgown virtually year-round. There is a pile of clean laundry on top of the dryer, a load in the dryer and several stacks of clean clothes around the house because my partner and I seem to be playing a game of Laundry Chicken that simply will not end.

We keep a carton of juice in the fridge that neither my teen or my partner will touch because it's been well-established that at three in the morning, I cannot be bothered to get a glass.

I go afterbra as soon as humanly possible. In the car before I've put on my seatbelt to return home, in the garage before I even get fully inside. I've found bras tucked into every purse I have, because I forgot to take them out after getting home.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. (Pun intended)
posted by nuala at 12:05 AM on August 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

My ex-boyfriend (age 31 when we broke up) kept a metal lathe on his kitchen table and a nonworking defibrillator machine on the floor next to his fridge. He owned at least five opened containers of McCormick's pepper that he refused to deacquisition. The TV and sofa in his living room had been discarded from his dorm... and he'd dropped out of college two years in. (He kept the giant wooden dorm sign in his kitchen.) He used one bedroom exclusively for clothes storage (dumping it all on the bed) and had a giant -- we're talking 3' x 3' x 3' -- bin in his basement full of socks he planned to bleach bomb. And despite living in Wisconsin, he didn't use his two-car garage. Most of it was full of tools, but it also still held his non-running minivan that he'd given up for a Jeep five years before. When he and his friends held housewarming parties, they competed to see who could place the empty PBR cans in the most unusual and/or hard-to-reach and/or least noticeable places. His main cleaning strategy involved buying Ikea candles in bulk and liberally spraying Glade Potpourri.

He is now married and has a kid and a cat. I know I've said this before: I am DYING to see what that house looks like now.
posted by Madamina at 12:43 AM on August 26, 2012

Bras are outside the house wear only, nuala. Those strange people who wear a bra to sleep scare me. They cannot be human. It is impossible.

The worst though is when I get home from somewhere, and collapse on my porch furniture, and do the magic bra off trick, without my shirt coming off, thing that all women know, and forget the bra on the porch. I am not a small woman. My breasts are enormous. My bras are things of wonder and amazing feats of engineering.

I got home one night and tossed my bra in its normal spot amidst my jungle of plants. Off I went inside to make dinner, wash dishes, all that fun adult stuff. Later that evening, I watered my plants, moved stuff around. Next morning, I picked some herbs and peppers, and noticed nothing awry.

Oh no, I realized something was wrong when I Fed Ex guy knocked on the door, for a signature (yay wine.woot) and he was giggling. I swung open the door, greeted him, and looked beyond his shoulder, to my one plant table, and the BRIGHT PINK GIANT BRA sitting there, like a mountain for my gnomes to climb.

I turned the color of the bra, finished signing, had him slid the box into the house (as is normal, my Fed Ex guy is awesome) and tried to act as if nothing was wrong. He was still being so professional, getting ready to turn and walk away, I looked up at him, and we both started laughing so hard I thought one of us would pee ourselves. I used my cane to hook the bra by the strap, pulled it in, and thanked him for not taking a picture of it for his coworkers.

We have not spoken of this again. As far as I know there is no picture of the giant bra amongst the plants floating around the internet. I am still a bras are for outside the house only person, but now? I throw that sucker at the door, so it will be in my way and make it into the house!
posted by SuzySmith at 12:51 AM on August 26, 2012 [7 favorites]

I got a call last week from my mother and the first thing she asked was what size bra I wore now, which I thought was strange but answered anyhow. Turns out I'd left a bra there and my mother, sister, and family friend had spent days trying to figure out where said rogue garment came from. This was compounded by a number of fights for the family friend who apparently offered my bra to several of the women she's been seeing with predictably terrible results. Oops.
posted by nuala at 1:17 AM on August 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

And I raise all you Nutella-for-dinner people by infinity. You need speculoos (aka Biscoff spread) for dinner. And some Vitamin Water to wash it down, according to my archives.
posted by knile at 3:41 AM on August 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Those strange people who wear a bra to sleep scare me. They cannot be human. It is impossible.

Guilty as charged. I sometimes sleep in bras, which makes me inhuman and unbachelor. I have also never worn swimsuit bottoms as underwear, or fried ramen in a pan, or taken a bath with glowsticks and a glitter bath bomb purchased with the last $5 in my checking account, singing about my space bath adventure, nope not me and you can't prove anything.

At the height of my foul bachelorette days I lived two blocks from a 7-11, a Dunkin' Donuts, and three Thai restaurants. I also lived two blocks from a library and a park with a fitness center. You can probably guess which establishments I frequented and which ones I sort of forgot existed.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:00 AM on August 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

I call that "My Sofa Year"

I had a Sofa Year too! I started sleeping there after an injury and just kept on doing it. When the Parental Units found out they were horrified and eventually guilted me into sleeping in my bed again. I think I may go back to the couch because I don't toss and turn when I sleep there. Fuck the Units!
posted by futz at 7:20 AM on August 26, 2012

Back when I was a bachelor and going through a phase of serial monogamy, every girlfriend I dated made a point of cleaning up the whole house one day when I was away at work.

Not to be sweet, not to lure me with homey charms, but because they couldn't stand what a mess it was.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:15 AM on August 26, 2012

bath with glowsticks and a glitter bath bomb purchased with the last $5 in my checking account, singing about my space bath adventure, nope not me and you can't prove anything.

Five stars! This is such a marvelous idea it breaks my heart I'd not thought of it previously.
posted by winna at 8:39 AM on August 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Knile, I can't keep that around anymore. I think I watched three seasons of West Wing while eating speculoospasta out of the jar with a spoon. The crunchy kind is especially tasty straight up.
posted by Karmeliet at 9:15 AM on August 26, 2012

I want a space bath adventure.
posted by The Whelk at 9:27 AM on August 26, 2012

Guilty as charged. I sometimes sleep in bras, which makes me inhuman and unbachelor

I don't know about the unbachelor thing, that I cannot judge. I went from my parents' home to living with my then fiance, now husband of fourteen years. While, together we have some bachelor tendencies, that is more due to a disabled wife who works and a husband that works too much.

Our tendencies are more things like too much clutter, washing dishes every other day or so, that kind of thing. Left to my own devices when he is away? I go hogwild and buy my dinner from the deli or salad bar in the local Mom and Pop grocery so I am definitely not bachelor material.
posted by SuzySmith at 9:30 AM on August 26, 2012

When I was eighteen, I spent eight or nine months sleeping on a twin mattress wedged onto a shelf in my boyfriend's parents garage, which I could only reach by ladder. We nailed boards from the edge of the shelf to the ceiling spaced a few feet apart so I could tack up a privacy sheet and to be sure I wouldn't fall out if I rolled over. I had a small TV at one end of the shelf. I called it The Fort. I lived on 99¢ Whoppers, which I ate after sessions with my favorite bong named George ("I'm going to love him and squeeze him and call him George").
posted by nuala at 9:59 AM on August 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh MAN. How did I get this far without discussing the Cat Box?

The Cat Box is a set of two apartments above an unoccupied office, across the street from a salvage yard and Hawkeye Downs (the stock car raceway). My husband lived there in his early 20s, when he was a gigging drummer. To this day, when you hear that someone is living in the Cat Box, you know that things are not going well.

The Cat Box was owned by the father of my husband's friend Dart, short for D'Artagnan. Dart looked like an overweight Travis Tritt and intended to start his own used car lot. According to my husband, "The only time I'm aware that he did anything resembling car repair was when he took a battery from my car."

("Honey, is 'Cat Box' one word or two?" "I think two -- he WAS going to start CB Auto... eventually...")

The Cat Box was so named because Dart, who lived in one of the apartments, had nine cats. ("Could you smell the cats?" "No, but biscuits and gravy didn't smell that great." "Did he cook that all the time?" "No; Biscuits and Gravy were his pit bulls that he kept out back.")

It was perfect for a garage band called the Pee Pees; they could host shows and practice in the 18'x20' living room at any time of night and the landlord (Dart) wouldn't care.

However, it also had its disadvantages. Dart didn't have a bathtub, so for the first week my husband lived there, Dart would wander into their apartment to "soak [his] boil-ass."

According to my husband's guitarist, one day Dart was driving down a gravel road, eating Taco Bell tacos in his car, when he dropped them all over his lap. "WHY do I LIVE like this???" he moaned.

Naturally, that became the motto of everyone involved. "We named our tour the 'Why Do We Live Like This???' Tour," says my husband. "It started when Nate shit his pants right before we left. He hadn't brought a spare pair. He went into the gas station to try and fix the situation, but... no dice. Took a couple days before we got to a thrift store."

Why, indeed.
posted by Madamina at 2:39 PM on August 26, 2012 [7 favorites]

GRODES
posted by samofidelis at 10:22 PM on August 26, 2012

Reading everyone's comments, I feel like I'm not living up to the possibilities of bachelorhood. I have to start drinking beer in the shower, but sometimes I shower in the morning, so we'll about it.

As for bachelorette life - I'm a pretty neat overall, but I don't have any cupboard or shelves at home outside the kitchen. About half of my living room [which would otherwise go unused] is taken up by my outdoor gear, which lives in four crates on the floor, my bike and two piles of book on an unused chair. Even male bachelors commented on my lack of shelving units.

Speaking of chairs, my parents gave me four of their old semi-designer kitchen chairs. One of them is the "gently used" pile in the bedroom, one has a printer on it, another one has a couple of half-a-meter piles of books on it. The fourth is folded up on the corner. I actually sit on a salvaged, crappy office chair from the recycling center store, guests usually sit on the camping chair with the beer holder. I also have a nice sofa. Sometimes I remember to sit on it myself, but usually I just have gear on it. Sometimes other people sit on the couch with me, but that tends to lead to making out. I try to avoid it, as it leads to relationships and then I'd have to go to Ikea and get some shelves :(
posted by ye#ara at 6:34 PM on August 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

I feel like I'm not living up to the possibilities of bachelorhood....

... Sometimes other people sit on the couch with me, but that tends to lead to making out. I try to avoid it, as it leads to relationships and then I'd have to go to Ikea and get some shelves

You're doing just fine!
posted by mannequito at 12:25 AM on August 29, 2012

MetaFilter: try to avoid it, as it leads to relationships and then you'd have to go to Ikea and get some shelves
posted by Madamina at 10:00 AM on August 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

After university, I lived for several years in an ultimate bachelor house. Burglars broke in once and couldn't find anything to steal. Moths got into our pantry and starved to death. There was a standing rule that anything in the house was either (a) dirty enough to pour bleach on, or (b) not actually that dirty. Visitors tended to draw the line at our menagerie, a tupperware container filled with any cockroaches foolish enough to be trying to find food in the kitchen.

Even we reached our limit once during a dirty-dishes-passive-aggressive-stand-off, when Housemate A picked up all of the offending items and dumped them onto Housemate B's bed in an attempt to force him into action. No such luck - the dude just slept on top of them. Completely derailed the fight. How do you deal with a person like that? In the end we just gave up, aghast, and cleaned his dishes for him.
posted by notionoriety at 3:30 PM on August 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

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