Have you ever left a cheese sandwich sitting in the fridge for like a week? And it starts to smell vaguely of old-man-at-the-gym groin in a way that makes you grimace every time you open the fridge? Now imagine instead of a cheese sandwich is a dead beast and it's not kept at 38 F, it's rotting under your futon. That's the level of commitment you need to be on Hoarders. You could just leave 1000 boxes of shit all over your house, but really, is that going to make the same kind of impression in anyone's mind that neglecting an animal until it not only dies but is thoroughly sapped of moisture while it remains in your living area will? No. You need a mummified cat.

Feasibility: I don't have a cat handy, but I do have a two-pound chihuahua named Mojo, and that's like 2/3s of a mummified cat right there. As near as I can tell, if I want him mummified I either have to wrap him in bandages or pack him in salt or some kind of spice medley, neither of which he will sit still for. I opt to try the first solution.

Pictured: Not a mummy

Results: Failure. You can wrap a small dog repeatedly in all manner of things, but he will still use his small, raptor-like legs to claw free. His staunch refusal to be mummified is both admirable and disheartening.

This is a good one because it's very counter-intuitive. You'd think a nutter with shit issues would just let loose all over the house, and if they were going to use the toilet, then probably they'd at least flush. Oh man, are you ever wrong.

Time and again, Hoarders shows us that people are willing to make the effort to climb over towers of unsafe rubble like goblins in that shanty-town in Labyrinth, just to make it to the shitter, and then inexplicably give up once they reach their goal. More than one washroom was caked in layers of used toilet paper and deuce that required dudes in gas masks equipped with shovels to clean out. Can you shit entire shovelfuls on your own bathroom floor? A&E accepts no less.

Next week, Gene Simmons tries to bone her in an episode of Family Jewels.

Feasibility: This is another sticky wicket as I don't live alone. Sure I could start building my own mud kingdom, but it's going to make my roommates super pissed. Or is it?

Results: Failure. I attempted to test the waters by simply not flushing for a few days straight, leading to repeated cries of who's the asshole who didn't flush? Naturally I refused to take ownership and my efforts got flushed time and again until finally someone entered the room directly after me and caught me in the act. I received a punch in the gut for my troubles and assurances I can be kicked off the lease.

This one makes me feel horribly unsafe, as more than one episode has featured older men who simply left an abundance of loaded weapons lying around the house under massive piles of shit. But that fear for one's personal safety needs to be exploited. Imagine how terrified you'd make the audience if a crew showed up and you just had ninja stars and land mines sitting in old banana boxes piled to the ceiling. That's entertainment.

Any visibly unsafe situation brought on by heaps of clothing, old newspapers and floor-to-ceiling rat towers becomes exponentially more horrifying and fantastic (henceforth to be known as hortastic) when there's a loaded 12-gauge or two jammed in the center of it all.

Feasibility: I don't own any guns.

Results: Success! Not one to rest of my laurels (the government repossessed my laurels) I figure the next best thing I can do is lace my home with illegal fireworks. I may not have guns but you better believe I have illegal fireworks. A couple under the sofa, one in the toilet tank, another in the crisper and my home is suddenly poised on the precipice of bursting into a symphony of lights and scorched walls with one errant cigarette ash.

On the downside, I am unable to find an accurate definition of a hoard anywhere online to determine how many I need to officially be hoarding anything. Regardless, that's a hell of a lot of Nute Gunray.

It's true, some people are food hoarders but they tend to have freezers full of wheat germ or some shit that's just going to sit around forever and be odd in a bit of a roadside bearded lady sort of way but nothing to write home about. The ones you want to model yourself after are the ones with about five refrigerators chock full of food that went bad when Bush, Sr. was running the show. This is based entirely around rationale we can surely all get behind: If it isn't puffy yet, it's safe to put in your mouth.

Unsafe!

Feasibility: I think I may have been unwittingly living this dream for a few months as I recently discovered after chewing some Five Alive that juice does, in fact, expire.

Results: Failure. Man, this is a blow to the ego. Eating expired food should be as easy as getting the cast of Jersey Shore to fail an IQ test. Despite this, when confronted with the single yogurt we've been inexplicably keeping at the back of the fridge since around Christmas '08, I find I do not have the testicular fortitude for any kind of follow through. It smells the way I imagine my corpse would smell if some one bludgeoned me to death with canned peaches and baby vomit.