When I was a kid, and the family had a big party, I tended to end up in the kitchen, doing the cleanup.
Before you’re seeing some sort of Cinderella situation, don’t. The biggest problem I had is that at the time I had absolutely no idea that I was an introvert, see. I can fake extrovert — you’ve seen it at cons — but very large parties in crowded rooms drain me so fast you wouldn’t believe. I would run away to the kitchen.
My parents parties were usually a three ring circus which started with 50 invited people and somehow exploded to 150 or 200, by the bring-a-friend system. And the “they said we could drop by system.”
And I cannot — cannot — overemphasize how much my mom, who is a born extrovert finds excuses to have parties. It seemed that every other weekend there was a party for something: birthdays, anniversaries, sports club wins or a party because they hadn’t had a party in a while.
Thing is, culturally and for my family it was unacceptable for the teen daughter to go “AHHHHHH, People. I’ll be in my bunker.” If I tried to do that I’d be rude and anti social.
But if I put on an apron and went into the kitchen to start cleaning I was also alone save for the occasional person dropping by to look for something, but I was “such a nice girl” and “such a useful young lady” and “I wonder why she hasn’t bee snapped up.”
Between the whirling, LOUD gathering, and the “everything exploded over every surface” kitchen I’d take the kitchen every day and twice on Sunday, when the parties were bigger and louder.
Thing is, when I say “everything exploded over every surface” there are things you have to understand. I recently suggested to someone — coff — considering wedding expenses that if I’m given full run of a kitchen for a week or two (on the assumption I’m keeping up writing schedule at same time, btw) and a fridge or freezer to use at will, and $500 I can cater an hors d’oeuvres (things on sticks) reception for 50 to 100 people. (And we can probably get volunteer servers. COFF. Not that you know…. well, it’s just me.)
I know I can do this, because I’ve done it before. (Used to be $100, but you know.) And because I apprenticed at the knee of the best. Only mom, who is an excellent cook, didn’t go in for the hors d’oeuvres thing. That was the opening salvo. Also, I hate to tell you guys this, but when it comes to eating, we Americans are amateurs. At older son’s civil wedding, I looked at the very nice, perfectly wonderful arrangements and thought the equivalent crowd of Portuguese would tear through the available food in the first five minutes and then wander off to eat the countryside. (To be clear not a criticism of arrangements. I think they had leftovers. Because Americans.) I’d say Portuguese eat like writers, but that’s not even true. They eat like locusts. And mom’s parties usually had enough leftovers to feed us for a week (until the next party.)
And because she had a job, she usually only cooked for the party for like two or three days. And uh…. “Used every pot in the kitchen” and “She can’t be throwing bones and bits of vegetables in the sink in expectation of a disposal, because she never had any.”
In other words, mom cooks as I write. Throw things everywhere, trust the clean up after. (The sad thing being usually I am the one cleaning up the writing. Sniffle. Okay, except Sarah C. and Amy B. who are going to kill me for saying I clean it.)
I’m trying to paint a picture. I’d come into the kitchen, apron around my middle, and the first order of business was “Clear the sink so the dish washing can start.” And there the problem started. There were PILED UP, unstable, tottering towers of dishes, spoons, stirring implements, trays, pots, etc on every available surface, including the chairs. And in the middle of each of these piles would be the discards: Bones, fat, dough imperfectly scraped from bowls, bits of vegetables, eggshells, etc.
Which meant I usually started the festivities by making the mess worse. FAR FAR WORSE. Like “First, find a bucket to fill with stuff for the compost heap, and a bag for non-bio-degradable trash. Put them on the floor.” Now start removing the first layer of dishes and making other piles, on the floor. (Though if it was warm-ish or at least not freezing, I often moved them to the patio, just so I wouldn’t trip on things.)
I tried to get on with this phase as fast as humanly possible, lest a guest (or a brother!) came into the kitchen and screamed “you’re making it worse.” Or, you know, tripped on one of the jenga piles rising waist-high on the floor. If I could get through it quickly enough, by the time people came into the kitchen, the piles were orderly, mostly on the kitchen table, on towels, to dry. And if they came later, I was just putting things away in batches, and taking in new incoming piles from the dining room (Soup bowls, appetizer plates, two main course plates, etc.) onto already designated surfaces.
But if they came in early enough they were usually shocked and horrified and went to ask my mom “Carmen, do you know what your daughter is up to?” Mom who was fluent in my cleaning methods, and by then quite used to them, might poke nose in and go “Not the vintage dishes on the floor. Put them on a chair. Move the pans to the floor” but that was about it. Most of the time, she’d come in, leave, close the door behind herself, and make jokes about leaving the cleaning crew to her work.
Now, why is this relevant?
Our culture, finance, government, entertainment, news reporting, etc. now are various aspects of the messiest kitchen you can possibly imagine.
Periodically, out of the blue, for who knows what reason — notice I wasn’t doing what I did out of a pure heart — someone who really could be doing other things volunteers and takes a giant hit to go and attempt to clean up a portion of it.
Trump, sure. Also Elon, also at a smaller level, a lot of other people here and there.
I was reading at what is going on at twitter in mild horror. (I really need to sign up to pay for a check mark, just–)
And it came to me that Trump faced this plus a million. AS WILL ANYONE ELSE STEPPING UP TO CLEAN UP.
The mess is so unbelievably large and organic, that to clean it up passes through “first make things even more messy.”
On top of which the left are like the worst kind of party goers. They congregate in the kitchen, screaming at anything you do, and trying — at the same time — to make the mess even worse, under the assumption that somehow, if they break everything, then automagically everything will be clean. Also, frankly, because they are unbelievably, bizarrely stupid and don’t realize what a mess it is, nor that there is a problem with it. For instance the celebrutards screaming for the end of fossil fuels really have no clue of the first order effects of such a thing, let alone second or third. They have the kind of finely trained stupidity that takes years and thousands of dollars to make people believe in, so that they could walk into mom’s kitchen as a party started and praise the “organic order” and talk about how as things decayed they would clean themselves.
So…. what do I mean?
1- Don’t look for the guy who comes in and clean everything. I could sort of do that in mom’s place, because it was one kitchen, and though the mess was ongoing, the party had an end. (Okay, often at one in the morning the next day.) This is several messes, and have been going on for 100 years, meaning that you can’t clean them in a day. Or a week. Or a month, or probably a few decades.
2- It’s often going to look worse once they start. Because first you have to get the the bottom of the piles and figure out what is making the jengaed (totally a verb) pile of 100 year old teacups shake if you breathe on them. (And what you find at the bottom is probably unbelievably gross and stupid.) Which means moving everything around. When the left screams about “chaotic staffing” or whatever, remember that first you have to move things around to figure out what’s causing the problem.
3 – Even after you start cleaning, messes will continue growing, because life doesn’t stop, and frankly the left likes the mess and to an extent thinks it’s normal operating procedure. You have to trust the crazy volunteers (even those getting paid) who jump into this, to just do the best they can, incrementally.
4- Don’t discard people because they don’t get it all under control immediately. It’s not going to happen. Just praise them, help them, and keep going.
5- We will do it. Eventually even the greatest mess, you turn the corner, and start cleaning faster than it can propagate. It just takes time and not falling into despair.
6- Despair will be a big temptation, because you’ll be tired, cranky and your hands wrinkled from dish soap, but it looks like you did nothing, and in fact the mess seems to keep growing. Or at least it’s more visible.
Keep your head down, keep DOING. It will get better, I promise. I don’t promise in my life time, because I’m early-old. But it will get better.
Be not afraid. Put on your apron and start scrubbing. Even if everything seems terrible, even if everything seems to be falling apart, choose your area and go to work. You can’t work on everything at once. No one can.
But just go to work, and trust others will join in, some (like Elon) much bigger than we are.
Keep cleaning. We’ll turn this corner.
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