This issue has been annoying me ever since I started using cast iron. I love cooking with it, but I'm terrible at the maintenance.

Do any of you cook with it? If so, what do you do with it afterwards?

An old roommate of mine used to use his skillet to fry fish in the mornings (filling the whole house at 8am with the smell of fish, which I did not like). He'd then use a paper towel to wipe out the skillet and then put it away. Now, I'm a pretty fastidious kitchen cleaner, and I'm already getting used to not scrubbing my cast iron pans, but should I do THAT little? That seems unsanitary to me

The problem I'm having is that I keep reading and hearing very different advice on how to maintain these things. All I know is that even when I've seasoned these pans, they aren't nearly as "miraculously non-stick" as people claim, and because of that I seem to have to work pretty hard to remove the stuck-on bits of cooked food.

So what's the real way to take care of my pans?