I am reading slowly because there is only so much of P.J.’s immature fixation on sex, drugs and booze I can take in one setting. I am reading because in between the adolescent sleaze there are gems of O’Rourke humor.
The book is an approach to how a bachelor keeps house. Basically they don’t. You let the trash pile up until you can’t move around then you move to a new apartment. Some is standard stereotypes of men so dumb that they put the whole box of detergent in the washing machine and have suds all over the floor. Others make me laugh.
“Use the right equipment to clean brushes, rollers, paint trays, etc. I use the garbage can.” page 104It is a kind of cruel laugh because I remember my days as a bachelor.
In visiting a bachelor recently I came across something I don’t think he mentioned.
Bachelors are free to do what they want to do as long as the noise and smell don’t attract the police. So they try things like using the living room as a place to separate their clothes and leave them in piles because what is the point in folding up underware when you are going to need it soon.
This bachelor had an interesting spin on food gone bad. I noticed an unopened block of mild cheddar cheese that had mold growing inside the wrapper. He noticed me noticing and explained that it was an experiment. At my puzzled look he said he was waiting to see if the mild cheddar would eventually turn into sharp cheddar. For a civilized person this is weird. For a bachelor this is science.
He needs to find a wife to civilize him.
O’Rourke, P.J. The Bachelor Home Companion. New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997.
homo unius libri