The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe:
“I ran out of money in my final semester of graduate school. My first teaching job awaited me in the fall semester, but I had no income for the three summer months before then.
“So I gave up my apartment and moved into a shared house with seven other guys. It was a huge old house with eight bedrooms, so each of us had a private room, and we all shared a common kitchen and two bathrooms.
“Perhaps you know that some guys are neater than others, so the eight private rooms varied from clean to messy, but each guy was content with his own space. Yet the common kitchen and bathrooms were always dirty-to-disgusting, and we all complained about them.
“When I moved in, I spent an afternoon cleaning the bathroom nearest to my bedroom. Within two days it was gross again, and I resolved to spend no more time cleaning it. That summer I showered at the university gym …” [Read more here.]
Previous column in The Good Life series: Blamestorming and Environmental Problems (Part I).