I sent this a while ago to my suitemates in an attempt to motivate them to be cleaner. Some people found it funny. (It was intended to be half humorous).

Gentlemen,

The kitchen was filthy. Food particles were everywhere. RICE was everywhere. Nastiness in the microwave. Dirty dishes in the sink. Dirty dishes on the counters. A heaping pile of clean dishes in the dish rack. There were things superbly adhered to surfaces. When things are superbly adhered to surfaces shit hits the fan. Luckily for us, we don’t have a fan.

You all should be ashamed of yourselves for not respecting the other members of the suite, for not respecting guests that we might have over. This is our temporary home and homes are not something to disrespect. If your friends are the types that appreciate filth or like to eat the days-to-weeks old pieces of rice on the floor, that’s my problem. My friends would rather drink boxed wine before they’d do that.

We cleaned this evening. Not that you noticed. I did counters, microwave, floors, trash, first pass range, and some dishes. Casey did dishes and trash. Varun cleaned the range with care.

Mr. Clean was nowhere to be found.

Six’s mom did these things weeks ago. I query you: how many times did I or Six’s mom make a mess with the range? How many times did I or Six’s mom make rice? How many times did I or Six’s mom explode a food item in the microwave?

The answer, my dear sirs, is zero. Zero. What percentage of time did our cooking behavior in a common area affect other members in a suite? NaN. But, we still find ourselves on the other end of a mop. Our hands are still stained with bleach. Our tears are made of PineSol.

And what am I going to ask you to do in the future? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You’ve demonstrated that you’re comfortable with mess in shared spaces and you’ve demonstrated you don’t care. I have no incentives to make you care.

And why should you really? Because the happiness of a person is apparently based on hunting and southerners, not the cleanliness of our homes. What a northern ideal. Hmph. Damned northerners.

There is no economic incentive for you to care. Maybe the rest of us should start eating your cheese. Then you’d get the message. A man’s cheese is nothing to tamper with, but neither is a man’s right to a untainted, comfortable common room. But if we started to eat your cheese, you would just stop buying it and continue to make a mess.

There are no environmental activists that are campaigning for a cleaner kitchen. Steve Jobs is not getting on stage and preaching for a mopped floor. There are no Linux User Group meetings about the efficacy of clean common rooms in system administration.

There is just no reason for us to care.

Yes, it could have been worse. Yes, it could have been much worse. Yes, other suites are worse. Those are defeatist arguments and I have no regard for defeatists. I defeat defeatists before taking breakfast every morning.

Ask yourselves: WWMMS? (What would my mother say?) Or perhaps more importantly: WWSMS? (What would Six’s mother say?).

They wouldn’t say anything. They’d be clean, stay clean, and clean anyway.

We need a Suite Mom. Unfortunately, the only girlfriends of h305ers are not in the running for the position. More unfortunately for me, I seem to be the de facto top candidate. I don’t want any MILF jokes, you hear?

Enjoy the cleaner suite. More specifically, enjoy dirtying it up in the coming weeks so I/we can clean up your mess again. And then, I’ll send this exact email again. It’ll just become a routine.

Eric