Nanoprep 2023 Day 8: Tidy
By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-11
Third date already, Marc mused as he scooped some of the lasagna sauce into a clean sauce pan, and swirled it around a bit. Then he placed the pan on the stovetop and turned on the burner just long enough for the sauce to bubble and darken a little, then turned it off again. Looks legit, he said to himself, out loud for some reason. He then started to put the food from the packaging it had been delivered in, into an oven dish, and stuck it in the oven to keep it at the right temperature.
She'll totally believe he cooked this for her. He shook his head and wondered what had come over him when he offered Stacy to do so, since he couldn't even successfully boil an egg. But it was too late to take that back now, so a clever ruse with no victims it would be.
He checked his phone, and saw he had about half an hour left. He remembered he still had to finish cleaning, and went into the living room to do so. He'd already spent an hour cleaning, which had ended up with 2 filled garbage bags having to be brought down to the trash container. Then he'd actually run out of garbage bags, but he was already glad he had any at all, since he'd also had to look for those for 10 minutes or so.
It had struck him that his regular standards for cleanliness were... Subpar, perhaps. But he lived alone, so it generally never bothered him. The people who came over were generally fine if he just made all the obvious trash disappear. A bit of dust here and there never bothered them. Or a stray piece of pizza. Or an empty mug filled with a mold slowly becoming sentient. Then again, most of his friends were guys, so they all kinda did the same, Marc thought, which reassured him.
He noticed a few prints he'd made, personal stuff, and grabbed them. He walked to the hallway closet and opened it up.
There, like a tower of filth, he had stashed every single bit of trash he'd found after he'd run out of garbage bags. All stacked upon the previous layer of crap. Pizza boxes, some still with crusts in it, empty drink cups, y'know, the kind of stuff you gather when you're a bachelor who orders most of their food. He placed the pieces of paper on top, and closed it again. When it wouldn't close, he noticed the vacuum hose had unfurled and was blocking the door. He kicked it in hard and quickly slammed the door shut. He heard some things move around and fall inside, but the door was closed, so whatever. He turned the key to lock it just in case.
He looked over his empire of bachelorhood once again and saw it was... Okay. It was okay. Nothing obviously wrong. He was ready. He went back into the kitchen to check on the lasagna, and he lowered the temperature a little. It smelled and looked amazing.
This was going to be a great evening.
He sat down and just scrolled on his phone for a while. After about 5 minutes, the doorbell rang. When he walked to the door, he stopped quickly in front of the hallway mirror and checked his hair and outfit. He felt it was all good. A deep breath, and he opened the door.
"Hiiiiii," he said, "Welcome to Casa di Marc," he added with instant regret. Why Italian? He wasn't even Italian.
Marc had felt he was well-dressed, but Stacy outclassed him still, wearing a black skirt and a white, seemingly knitted off-shoulder sweater. He liked it, and his face showed it.
"Haha, thanks," she responded as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Come on, come in," he said as he stepped out of the way and waved her in.
She walked in, her first time in Marc's place. She hung her bag on the coat rack and walked into the living room.
"Don't screw this up, Marc," Marc mumbled to himself.
She looked around, at the framed posters of movies and musicians, and pointed at the sofa. Marc nodded, and Stacy sat down with a smile.
"Food's almost ready," Marc lied. "I can smell it, it smells great!" "I promise it will be," he said as he walked into the kitchen.
"It better be," he thought to himself, "or I'm going to give them a 1 star rating."
Since there wasn't much to do, he just ended up sort of standing there, sometimes moving something around and clanging a fork against something, to keep up the pretense he was finishing cooking. He sincerely hoped she'd stay out of the kitchen. He only intended to keep it up for a minute or two.
"Holy crap, you still have CDs?" he suddenly heard from the living room. He stuck his head around the doorway and said "Yeah, why?" "Nothing, just, I don't. It's all online nowadays, for me. Can I go through these?" "Haha, sure, but I also mostly listen online, those are just CDs I've got good memories of." "Even better," she said as she grinned at him mischievously.
Before he could turn back into the kitchen to get the lasagna out of the oven, his eyes went over the carpet near the couch, and he saw it. A patch of what he could only imagine was an unholy tangle of hair, pizza crumbs and... Yeah, that's one half of an oreo, somehow. Cream still on. Crap. She'd notice. He hadn't noticed it because it was to the side of the coffee table, but she was sitting very close to it.
He did NOT want her to think he was a disgusting slob. Which he was. But he didn't want HER to know that. He actually liked her! Okay, okay, okay, he panicked.
Own it. Just own it, Marc. Own it, clean it, show her you might be inattentive but definitely not a slob. Okay.
"Oh, haha! It seems while cleaning I missed a spot! Do you mind if I fix that real quick?"
Stacy looked around, but didn't seem to notice it, and shrugged. "Sure, go ahead."
She continued going through the CDs she was holding, sometimes snickering a little. He was getting away with it. The date was saved!
He walked over to the hallway closet to get the vacuum cleaner, and before opening it he said "Normally I don't have dirty spots like that, but I was distracted because of meeting up with you tonight!", getting an "Aww, you dork," in response.
But then he turned the key and opened the door unceremoniously. He was distracted even more than before. He wasn't thinking. And he didn't remember, until it was too late.
The tower of filth surged forwards, momentarily enveloping him before it all just dropped to the ground, loud bangs, clangs, and thuds as it spread out across the entire width of the hallway. Pizza boxes fell open, a stale moldy food smell almost immediately wafting towards him. The empty drink cups? Not empty. They splashed on him, their weeks-old contents fragrant beyond anything he'd expected.
"Huh," he said to himself as he stared down at the mess he'd made. "Oh no."
Stacy was up and around the corner of the living room almost as quickly as he started to realize what was about to happen.
"What was th... Oh.. Oh my god," she said, as she quickly covered her nose and mouth.
The smell of now-burnt lasagna had very quickly been pushed aside by the smell of rancid trash.
"I... I have to go," Stacy said, her voice muffled through her fingers, and she moved past Marc, tiptoeing around him carefully without touching anything, including him.
She grabbed her bag quickly and was gone, leaving the door open behind her. Marc stood still, not really parsing much of what had just happened. He heard the ding of the elevator. He thought he heard someone retching, but he wasn't sure.
He slowly turned his head towards the door and closed it. Then he stepped over the trash and towards the window, to open it and let the disgusting air out, and some fresh air in.
Then he sat down on the couch, not even realizing some of the trash drippings that had hit him were now dripping on the couch and the carpet.
Then he slowly fumbled around in his pocket for his phone, swiped away amessage from Stacy saying how gross he was, and opened his notes app.
"Buy garbage bags," he typed, then fell back onto the couch.
Yeah, he thought, he should probably be better.