Kate Clancy, PhD

Monday, October 6th 2014

We Talked, They Listened (Mostly), Then They Made Things Worse

A list of things in my house, in approximate descending quantitative order. I may have left a few out, and the list may be biased because I did a free association where one thing led me to think of another. But! It’s a list!!! And, well, if you have any issues with the accuracy or inclusiveness of my list, I’ll just make a longer one, with more stuff that I find important, using possibly worse and less inclusive metrics to determine it as I did the first time.

1. Microbes: oh I don’t know, a whole whole lot
2. Dustmites: also a whole whole lot, but probably a bit less than microbes
3. Face mites (thanks Ed Yong! I know this makes it looks like you gave them to us, but I’m going to leave this parenthetical comment as is): I don’t want to think about this, but I know it’s a lot
4. Legos: many, many, many
5. Books: this is a family that likes to read
6. Socks: we also like to wear socks
7. Fleas (thanks to our collie and no thanks to the completely useless Frontline Plus!): almost eradicated, but they persist in this one dog’s fur
8. Issues of National Geographic: over one hundred
9. Pieces of unfolded laundry: under one hundred
10. Underpants: under one hundred but more under than the laundry
11. Chocolate chips: just made cookies so less than usual
12. Children’s hair clips: oh dear god they hurt almost as bad as a lego when you step on them
13. Green tomatoes from the garden because we were about to have a frost: yum
14. Baby carrots: one bag
15. Issues of Runners World: we recently culled them, so fewer than in the past
16. Rolls of toilet paper: about a dozen
17. Overdue library books: less than a dozen
18. Humans: three
19. Cats: two
20. Dog: one

7 Comments

1. DNLee said:

   yep, seems about right

2. Glendon Mellow (@FlyingTrilobite) said:

   You listed the overdue library books that I also have so therefore I will defend this list to the death against any criticism.

3. Seelix said:

   Kate, you’re my favorite right now.

4. Dr. Kate Clancy said:

   Daw, seelix [bashfully kicks at ground, hoping to look adorable].

5. Marisa said:

   I suggest you include writing instruments. Note: If you choose to separate into the categories (e.g. colored pencils = artistic, grading pen = functional), I will be outraged by your decision process. If you choose to concatenate into a single list, i will accuse you of oversimplifying. So, lose-lose. Thanks!!!

6. sciwo said:

   LOLed at childrens hair clips. The rest is about right.

7. Drew Steen said:

   Fun fact I recently discovered for myself: it is totally legal to throw out old copies of National Geographic! Just read ’em and toss ’em in the recycling! This is surprisingly liberating. I have been doing this for several years now and it totally works.