I live in a g-Pod

You know the song "We all live in a yellow submarine" by the Beatles? Well, yesterday afternoon as I was strolling home to my apartment to teach a piano lesson, this particular music was pleasantly running through my head.

Until, that is to say, I arrived at the front door of my apartment and pulled the keys out of my coat pocket. As I unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the door open, I despairingly gazed at the Garbage Pit (yes, with capital letters) that is my living room. Suddenly, the excellent song I had been rather enthusiastically humming to myself morphed into the following:

We all live in the Garbage Pit of DOOM,
Garbage Pit of DOOM,
Garbage Pit of DOOM.

I won't give you all the dirty details of what may be found in this Garbage Pit of DOOM for fear of making you cough up your dinner, but suffice it to say that my apartment could easily be mistaken for the local landfill.

Now, I'll have you know that this is not due to a lack of attempts on my part to clean it--at least twice a week, in fact, as I cannot very well have students and their mothers wallowing in dirty socks, candy wrappers, used tissues, little bits of paper and cardboard, dirty dishes, cracker crumbs, and the like. Really and truly, the Halloween banner hanging haphazardly by a few pieces of Scotch tape in our front window says it all, (in blazing purple letters on a metallic silver background, no less):

"Beware! Enter if you dare!"

Of course, most people, upon knocking on our door, assume in blissful ignorance that this sign is, in fact, no more than a mere declaration of the apartment residents' festive spirit. What these innocent bystanders do not realize, however, is that they are actually standing at the brink of a black hole, and that if they set foot through the door, they may very well be sucked into a whirling vortex of death. Or perhaps a more appropriate wording for the latter part of the previous phrase would be "may very well become instantaneously smothered by a highly dangerous and toxic amount of rubbish."

Sadly, this condition in which the living room exists is not confined to that space alone. It spills into the kitchen and upstairs to the bathroom and bedrooms. I thought that at least my corner of the bedroom was safe from the onslaught of refuse, but alas, upon glancing under my bed, I found a pair of dirty...well, you can probably guess...that definitely wasn't my own. EW.

Yes, on a cleanliness scale of 1 to 10, my apartment ranks at approximately a 29,377. On a good day.

To use a new German phrase I learned today: Ach du Schande!!! [For crying out loud!] Pick up your trash, people. Pick up your trash.