Household Hints From P. J. O’Rourke

Running counter to all trends in housekeeping literature, humorist J. O’Rourke has reissued “The Bachelor Home Companion: A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig.”

We’re not in household-hint land anymore: The book is against cleaning, for dirt and pro-clutter.

This is the DUI school of literature, written with what’s known as broad humor and laced with drunk jokes and vocabulary from the author’s happy days at prep school. Still, there are some nice turns between long stretches, and a few ideas are unbeatable. To wit:

Basic House Cleaning

* The dining room: You can keep the dining room clean by eating in the kitchen.

* To give a woman the impression that your house is clean, use Pledge. Don’t use it on anything, just squirt some in the air.

* Bed-making: Just keep tucking in the end parts of things until their middle parts get smoothed out and flat.

* Spoilage table: Bibb lettuce is spoiled when you can’t get it off the bottom of the vegetable crisper without Comet. . . . Fresh potatoes do not have roots, branches, or dense, leafy undergrowth. . . . Any canned goods that have become the size or shape of a basketball should be disposed of. Carefully.

Bachelor Decorating

* Decorating With Alcohol: (1) Start with an empty room and take a big drink. (2) See, it looks better already. Take another drink. (3) Drink a bunch more. (4) Hey, this place looks great, dammit! Know what I mean? This is a great-looking place. Looks great.

Home Repair

* Fixing the Furnace: Usually what’s wrong with the furnace is that whatever it burns, you’re out of it. (Make sure you know what this is. Don’t stuff twigs and bark into a fuel-oil tank.)

* Leaky faucets: Tie an old dress sock to the mouth of the faucet and stuff the toe in the drain. This will let the water drip without keeping you up all night.

* Floor Refinishing: Refinishing floors is nonsense. Floors are either finished or they aren’t. If you can see into the basement, the floor isn’t finished.