Clean Your Room!

Kristen glared at her enemy sitting across the room from her. She brandished her weapon, a large cardboard box, and charged. Fueled by procrastination, she dove into the pile of junk in the corner of her dorm room. Books, pencils, CDs, manga, last semester's papers, mismatched dirty socks, dirty magazines, stuffed monkeys, and unopened packets of ramen flew through the air, pirouetting into the box.

Kristen's cell phone rang. "Hi mom," she said frantically, "I finished my last final half an hour ago. Uh huh..." She worked with one hand, scooping up a year's worth of dorm detritus. "An hour? Sure. I'll be ready then. Bye." She hung up and dropped the phone, continuing to tackle the mess.

Two boxes and a roll of duct tape later, she had finished packing. But there were more enemies to conquer. Dust bunnies giggled at her from underneath the bed. Kristen didn't remember those long hairs ever decorating the computer desk, but she would kill them all too. Not to mention Bert's filthy fish tank.

On her knees among gray fuzz, she swept under the bed. Dust clogged her nostrils, and she violated six tissues with the under-bed army itself. Half a garbage bag later, the floor and furniture were clean. She blew her nose once more, just for good measure, and reached for the fish tank.

Her phone rang again. But where was it? Not on the bare bed or the desk or dresser. There! In the box! Which had been painstakingly sealed with enough duct tape to attach a 300-lb man to the underside of a bridge! Ten minutes of handiwork ripped away as Kristen's fingers hunted for the vibrating Ghostbusters theme.

It was her friend Brian this time, wondering if he had left his PSP in her room. Groaning, she knelt by the torn box and rifled through it.

Knock knock knock.

She froze at the sound.

Knock knock knock.

Hanging up on Brian, she quickly threw the box back together and opened the door. Her mother stood there expectantly, but Kristen mumbled a "hello" and resumed taping the box closed.

"Wow," said Kristen's mother, glancing around at the immaculate, sparkling floor and furniture. "And to think your father and I worried you'd been living in squalor all this time."

Kristen laughed nervously. "Well, uh, you know how college can change people." She shot a quick look at the fish tank. Maybe her mother wouldn't notice the accumulating algae, or perhaps she would mistake it for seaweed.

Kristen's mother inspected the room, satisfied. She opened the closet door, checking to see if it was as clean as the rest of the room.

An avalanche of clothes, books, dirty dishes, and bowling equipment spilled out, burying the unsuspecting woman in a heap of college stuff. Kristen winced, biting her lip. This was not good.

"Crap, I KNEW I had forgotten something! Mom?" Kristen knelt by the pile. "Mom?" No answer. She brushed a couple notebooks away to find her mother's head twisted at an unnatural angle. The woman didn't move or breathe. Kristen fell back, horrified. A lone bowling ball rolled slowly across the room, coming to rest against a chair leg.

Kristen gazed down at the mess and her dead mother. She glanced out into the hallway and quickly closed the door. Sighing, she found her mother's purse and rifled through it for the car keys. Taking an empty box, she solemnly filled it with the remains of her mother's killer. When everything had been cleaned up, she nudged the body under the bed with her foot, carried the boxes and Bert's tank down to her mother's minivan, and bought a map of Canada on the way out of town.