Floor Items vs. Counter Items
One thing cannot be both.
Shoes go on the floor. Backpacks go on the floor.
Books go on the counter. Sweaters and laptops and boxes of cookies go on the counter.
Cups go on the Counter, unless you’re sitting on the Floor and will be finished with the cup right after, in which case the cup may go on the Floor, as long as you take the cup immediately to the sink once you get up.
At which point you will also dust off your pants, because they were on the Floor.
Feet go on the Floor. Feet do not go on the Counter.
Before I get in bed, I rub the bottoms of my feet together, hanging them off the edge of the mattress, so Floor debris doesn’t get in my bed. Is it more imaginary than effective?
I do not care. The Floor is off.
Megan showed me a TikTok years ago of someone’s dad doing the exact same foot-dusting motion on his way into bed. That man is the intended audience for this article. The enlightened.
But also, this is for the unenlightened.
Floor items may not travel through Counter airspace. For example. If you have a dog toy (Floor) in your hand, you may not hold it above a Counter. It has Floor on it and could drop Floor onto Counter. And Floor and Counter may not cross.
Another example. You are lying on the ground. You have on socks. You would not take your socks off over your face, probably because you are not that flexible. The secondary reason (or my primary reason) is that Floor might shed onto your face.
“My floor is not that dirty,” you think.
Floor is not a state of fact, it is an ethos.
More accurately: this is how I conceive of things; this is my writing. I do not care about your floor. I do not care if you agree with me. Unless I’m on your Floor.
There is a complication. Or, more likely, an intermediary:
The hard chair.
A hard chair may accept both floor items and counter items. You may briefly put shoes on a hard chair while you run the vacuum. You may put books and binders on a hard chair while you organize your table. A hard chair is where Floor and Counter come together.
But only on Hard Chair.
A pluffy chair, or a wooden chair with an attached cushion, or the swivel bamboo chair with a cushy white seat I stole from Reble—these accept Counter items only.
There’s a trend that puts stadium seating indoors. My darling alma mater just implemented it in the new student center:
This is sleek. It’s casual. It can hold a large range of people.
Look! Northwestern’s fancy MBA building did it too! Off to the left, see:
Cute!
But this design violates the rules of Counter and Floor.
Look again at the Samford picture. Where that couple’s feet are, someone will soon come sit. Where the couple currently sits, someone’s feet have just been. When a coffee cup or phone is set on this seating, it touches Floor. Then it continues to move through the world as though it is a Counter item.
We must take a stand.
Sometimes don’t sit on stadium seating.
I didn’t say it was much of a stand.
But at least it’s a stand with my feet on the Floor.
If you just need more to read, check out my previous cleanliness article, which is about trash cans </3
If you want to read one of my least popular articles, the one I wrote when I got my new computer and suddenly created better habits is still here <3
Iconic