Friday, 12 February 2010

Slobs

Reto went crazy at a book sale the other day and came home with a huge collection of crappy books that no one else wanted to give a home to. I'm reading one of them at the moment, Microtrends, about small but significant behaviour patterns (in the USA) that one might be surprised at. One of these is the prevalence of people who describe themselves as slobs (and "America has always fancied itself a country that values neatness", apparently) which is something like 10% of the population. According to their statistics,
"Fewer than 1 in 4 make their beds as part of a daily routine. More than 1 in 3 will leave their dishes in the sink more than a day. About 15% will even leave dirty dishes in their den, living room, or bedroom longer than a day. When they get undressed at night, almost 4 in 10 drop their clothes on the floor. One in 3 lets kitchen countertop clutter go uncleaned for more
than a week, if not indefinitely."

Hmm. So I guess that puts Reto and I, as well as practically everyone I know, firmly in Slobville. The big difference being that I don't actually consider myself a slob.

3 comments:

Global Librarian said...

I guess I must be an American Neat-freak! Although now that we have 2 children, my standards have lowered. Sometimes I leave the dishes in the sink until after Toddler Bedtime.

But I always blamed the neat-freak aspect of my personality on my Germanic Heritage. My Austrian-born grandmother used to scrub the driveway & sidewalk with soap and water. I have never done that. (Garage? Yes. Driveway? No.) Had no idea it was an American trait.

Tina+Bastian said...

I didn't know that I am a minority neat freak... But know that you talk about it, I notice that I make our bed and roughly clean-up the house every morning before I leave home. And I also clean the dishes and the kitchen counter, put Léo's toy mess away and prepare all the bags for the next day before I go to bed. (*ouch*, I'm really bad...).
But I must admit that I leave my clothes on the floor during the night. Is that enough to get labelled "normal"?

rswb said...

My former french teacher told me that she vacuums every single day, which I think puts her into neat freak territory too. There are a few of you out there...