I was surprised recently to read that 32 percent of the state's residents would seriously consider moving if the economy tanks.

Too bad, we'll miss you, but hey, more parking for the rest of us.

More excellent news arrived the other day in the form of yet another survey, this one commissioned by the iron manufacturer Rowenta. Boston, it emerged, is the sloppiest city in the country.

Whereas 17.8 percent of Americans said they would consider wearing a wrinkled garment to work, in Boston 26.5 percent said they'd head to the office looking as though they just rolled out of bed.

I don't know about you, but I love living in a place where the bar is so low. The worse others look, the better I do. If only Bostonians also were known for their wrinkled skin . . .

When I mentioned the survey to a friend who claims she's ``genetically'' unable to iron - her mother was a poor ironness - we wondered what was wrong with the Hub.

Does Boston attract the sloppy, in the way that Los Angeles attracts the thin and Miami the elderly, or is there something here that turns responsible adults into people who see nothing wrong with a little wrinkle, or 50?

Naturally, I wanted to interview an epidemiologist. I feared there might be some kind of dangerous ironing-deficiency cluster in my neighborhood that would affect real estate values. But since I couldn't find a scientist who'd studied the issue, I settled for Rowenta publicist Jennifer Gear.

Gear sounded like a nice woman, but she had no problem placing blame: the high-tech workers and college kids are bringing Boston's average down, she told me.

As an aside, she mentioned that in her day, graduating seniors bought a suit for their first job, and hence learned the importance of pressing. But kids these days, alas, go straight into a business-casual environment, and hence may never learn about steam settings.

I'm always ready to dump on the youth - I'm sick of advertisers fawning all over the 18-25 crowd - if you ask me, it's not the students who are at fault, but the professors.

Not only do these people get summers off and sabbaticals, they've somehow managed to turn rumpled into an asset. The rumpled professor has more important things to think about - molecules, Emma Bovary, Jung - than his appearance. The unspoken message is that he is too smart to iron. He's got the Mensa exemption.

But you, what's your excuse?

Here's mine:

I don't have a good iron (and I learned from Gear that without the right tool, i.e., a $150 Rowenta iron, ironing is almost impossible) and

My ironing board stinks. It's rickety and the pad is always askew.

I'd iron on the floor, but there's always the danger of ironing some Play-Doh into the garment in question. Like a bug trapped in amber, it's there forever.

I asked Gear if she could pass along any tips, and she let this one drop: When doing a shirt, start with the collar, then do the yoke, the cuffs, the sleeves and, finally, the body of the shirt.

``Most people want to do the big, easy part first,'' Gear said. ``But then you wrinkle the shirt as you go along.''

I, too, have a trick for getting all the wrinkles out of a shirt: Take the shirt, put it in a bag and carry it to the dry cleaner. Pick it up after 5:30, and - here's where it gets tricky - try to remember to hang it in your closet when you get home.