Signs and Portents

For the adolescent house cleaning impaired, the following is a helpful checklist designed and provided by the management to help in determining if in fact it is time to clean one's room.

10) Are there designated trails to allow for ease of passage through the room? Are they clearly marked and delineated to indicate level of difficulty/skill required by the hiker? If so...it's time.

9) When the dry erase board and calendar both read September and its March, it's time. Please note, it is not relevant whether the calendar says 2008 or 2007.

8) Displacement on too small a scale design errors: translation, five coffee cups, one tall glass and two plastic tumblers in the bathroom atop the sink to allow for rinsing and midnight drinks of water is perhaps too much for the demands of one teenager's dental hygiene or thirst. If you have to bus the sink, it's time.

7) Cascade effect. If you need a bigger and/or additional trash can, here's a hint. Try emptying it.

6) Papers --house or news, homework or letters, circa 2006. It's time. I promise, you won't be quizzed on your vocabulary from seventh grade, and if you are, you should know it by now.

5) Christmas/birthday cards/presents still wrapped/unopened. Boo. I'll be regifting...soon.

4) Relics/evidence of food. Best to leave no trace. CSI should not be able to determine you ate here. Neither should mom, and she's infinitely worse than those guys on TV.

3) 10$ in change. If I clean, there will be “carrying charges.”

2) Let’s think about this for a moment. Do you really want me going through your room?

1) Crunchy socks. They’re fabric, soft fabric. They shouldn’t BE able to make a sound by being folded akin to the snapping of branches.

Final Notice: Failure to adhere to this simple check list could result in the "accidental" releasing of toddlers into said teenager's room.