The Gorko Gazette

Daily Humor

thegorkogazette

7.11.2026 6:40 AM

Headlines

You Can’t Clean Everything by Adam Kaz

You Can’t Clean Everything

First accept that you can’t clean everything.

The hallway floor, for instance, I’m looking at it from the couch, is irreparably scuffed from my hockey puck. Whoops!

But there are cleanable spots all over the house I can attack in the hour before she arrives. While playing video games I consider how to make the greatest cleaning impact in the shortest time.

I should start with the bedroom, where I anticipate we’ll spend most of the evening. Three inches of clothes and garbage coat the place. But I can clean it fast, probably. The room is smaller than it appears, it’s an optical illusion.

Then the bathroom, obviously. Women can forgive a lot of things, but they can’t forgive a bathroom sticky with stains and sprinkled with hairs. After that wipe the crumbs from the couch and use whatever time remains to tackle dishes.

Perfect plan! But everything shatters when I recheck my watch and see she’s due to arrive in thirty minutes. Damn. I must adjust, I think, as I press X and start another quest.

The bathroom is non-negotiable. That’s priority number one. No need to do anything fancy in the bedroom, just shove all the clothes under the bed and get out fast so you can wipe down the couch. And the dishes? I don’t know if it’s the most worthwhile project. Maybe I could remove some of the coats from the rack. It’s weird how I keep my winter jacket out all year. People think that’s weird.

Wait, where was I?

I resurface from a zone out, the game gobbling minutes, and check the time. Panic! She’s going to be here in ten.

OK, OK, I’m reeling. OK. Forget the kitchen, just don’t offer her anything to drink. No drink means no bathroom; we can forget about that as well. How about the coat rack?

Wait, the porch! I’m thinking. I forgot about the porch! Her first impression of my home and its rusty bikes and broken chairs and rotted wood. I should throw all the porch trash in my back yard. Yes, if I clean just one thing I should clean my porch, I decide, as I stand and run for the door. But just as I grab the knob my phone dings.

It’s a text from her!

“Sorry running late. be there in thirty.”

Great! I think, relieved. Now I have like twenty minutes to complete the quest before I buckle down and seriously clean this place.

About the artist

Adam Kaz (he/him) is a Chicago-based writer, editor, critic, and educator. He is the editor-in-chief of The Ground Is Uneven, an arts and literary journal. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Milwaukee Avenue Messenger, MoonPark Review, Poetries in English Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, and others.