The act of cleaning your apartment just enough to trick visitors into thinking you don’t live like a pig.

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The Stages of Cleaning One’s Apartment:

1. Find your slippers.

2. Choose which episode of Frasier or Mystery Science Theater 3000 you want playing in the background.

3. Have a snack.

4. Wash the plate or bowl you used for your snack. Stand back and survey your accomplishment.

5. Shift and reassemble piles of detritus.

6. Sit down for a moment to read some old mail. Fall asleep.

7. Wake up in the dark, dazed and alone. Look at clock.

8. Spend the next fifteen minutes furiously cleaning: hiding junk, shoving things into closets, bagging garbage.

9. Accept congratulations from your girlfriend once she returns home from being a productive member of society.