Growing up, I assumed there were three ways to clean: the wrong way, the right way and my mom’s way, which shames the right way into becoming the wrong way. My mother is the queen of clean. If cleanliness is next to godliness, she deserves a chapter in a mythology textbook. The one constant in her kitchen, besides my brother and me rummaging through the pantry, is a crumpled, wet paper towel on the countertop just waiting to wipe something clean. “Crumbs” is, both literally and figuratively, a dirty word in our house.

Now that I am living in my own apartment, I find myself exhibiting some of my mom’s traits. I constantly wipe off tables and countertops, spot dirt and dust on an atomic level and love Oprah. (OK, I made that up. I actually see dirt on a subatomic level.)

The biggest beneficiaries of my cleaning, aside from my own sanity, are my roommates. At the beginning of the year, I politely declined their offers to help me clean. Now, they save their breath and simply know Saturdays feature two sounds – the roar of the crowds at the college football game we’re watching on television and the whir of the vacuum cleaner at halftime.

Still, I would not say I am obsessed with cleanliness. That implies I would have a nervous breakdown if I saw dirty dishes in the sink for more than 30 minutes. (Attention my roommates: don’t even think about it.) I just like cleaning, simple as that. The sense of accomplishment that is a spotless room is very fulfilling to me, not to mention more pleasing to the nose than the alternative.

The biggest problem with cleaning is things eventually get dirty again. This neverending battle is like a video game where I am the hero and dirt is the bad guy. As any self-respecting video game player knows, the key to beating a bad guy is to have the coolest weapons. For my battles, I rely on an arsenal that is basic and effective with a little flair – the Honda-with-a-rear-spoiler of cleaning supply closets, if you will.

It starts with the disinfectant wipes, because everything is handier in wipe form. If some genius before me had not tried to clean himself with these wipes – resulting in the warnings on the wipes container to keep them out of your eyes and off your skin – I would have definitely tried it. As it stands, I’ll stick to non-human surfaces.

The vacuum is the old, reliable standby, not to mention an excellent dance partner. The vacuum’s younger, hipper cousin is the Swiffer. Whoever invented this half-broom, half-mop device deserves a Nobel Prize. Don’t get me wrong, Professor Schelling deserved a Nobel for his work with Game Theory. But can Game Theory get dirt off the floor with a dry cloth and then clean the floor with a wet cloth, all in five minutes and with no mess? The folks in Sweden don’t know what they are missing, and I think that stinks.

Speaking of things that stink, the most dangerous part of cleaning involves the toilet. There are only so many flushes and so many sprays of air freshener you can use before you need to polish the porcelain throne. The problem is, like the board game Operation, you do not want to get too close to the sides of the toilet while scrubbing.

Enter what I call the toilet gun – my favorite cleaning appliance. It’s one of those toilet brushes with a canister of toilet bowl cleaner inside. Whenever the toilet is dirty or I want to amuse myself, I aim the brush into the toilet and pull the trigger. Out comes the cleaning solution, and, after a few good scrubs, down the drain the bad stuff goes.

Because toilet grime is the last bad guy of my cleaning video game, it’s only natural a special weapon is needed to kill it. And how did I get this weapon? The easiest way possible – the cheat code known as “mom.” The toilet gun was one of the first things she got me for my apartment when I moved in last year.

So come on over and use my toilet. I guarantee it will be clean, just like the rest of the apartment. Just please, take your shoes off first.

Danny Jacobs is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at jacobs@umd.edu.