After almost five years of living away from home, I have learned that clothes can make or break the cleanliness of a room. You never really realize how many clothes you have until they're spread out, wall to wall, in small piles and large, all across your room. Besides that, there are books all over the floor, my bed's not made and I have dust that needs dusting.

It doesn't take much effort to clean my room. All I have to do is pick up my clothes. Of course, that's my definition of cleaning - clearing a pathway so I can travel the major thoroughfares of my room virtually unobstructed. This usually happens on Fridays, when either my girlfriend is coming over - and I try to "impress" her with a "clean" room - or when I'm going home to do laundry.

My mom's definition is a bit more complicated. She would say that I would have to "make my bed," "dust" or "vacuum" in order for my room to be clean. My answer is, of course, the classic "But it'll just get dirty again."

My reasons for not performing the aforementioned tasks are simple. I don't like to make my bed because I like it to be ready in case I need to suddenly jump back in. I don't like to dust because I'm lazy. And vacuuming would require a vacuum.

Even if I had a vacuum, I wouldn't use it. I had a bad experience with one my freshman year, when I and three other guys lived in a university-owned apartment house. Our place redefined the word "dirty."

When the weeds sprouting from our living room carpet started blocking our view of the television, we figured we should probably mow the carpet. But the resident assistant didn't have a lawnmower, so we borrowed a vacuum instead.

Immediately after plugging it in, there was this clanking noise, presumably from the gravel that had collected in our rug. Then the vacuum began to emit blue smoke. Until then, I had never seen blue smoke, much less coming from a vacuum.

My feeling was that the majority of college males don't vacuum, so I took an informal poll of the guys sitting around me. Most of the responses ranged from "I never vacuum" to "Vacuum? What's that?" One person admitted to vacuuming a whopping three times.

"I never vacuum," one participant in the study said. "Maybe that's why I'm always sick."

Then I asked, "Have you ever seen blue smoke, specifically while cleaning?" The responses ranged from "all the time" to "You mean, that's not normal?"

One participant contributed the following: "Blue? Hell, I've seen red smoke, green smoke, orange smoke ..."

I can safely say I've only seen one color of smoke while cleaning.

My mom would be so proud.

Monty Phan is Arizona Daily Wildcat editor in chief. His column appears every other Friday.