Cinderello's Slopped Dripper

Kitchens should always be messy. Messy means someone ate. Messy means the household’s got better to do than instantly wipe every little slop and drip.

The Cheap family works mostly night shifts so the kitchen is “open” always. No one ever says “don’t mess it up ‘cause I just cleaned it.” There is only one kitchen question: what’s to eat? Or better yet: what ya cookin’?

Cleaning is sporadic, half-hearted, insufficient. Usually clearing just enough minimal-germ space for a given snack. If Dudine plans a big meal, a pre-assault team is sent to make a path and clear the area.

The sons took turns cleaning the kitchen each night for many years, one of those rare benefits to parenting despite the added whine. (He should have made a recording: “Because you helped make the mess, and it’s your turn.") Now it seems Cheap is the Head Dishwasher, if only because he has the lowest filth tolerance in the almost empty nest. So disgusted he has to do it.

This has its benefits. Streamlining: dumping all the eating utensils in the drawer at once. Is it really so hard to tell a knife from a fork? Insisting on their separation seems obsessive.

Also, he can hide stuff he doesn’t like. Like the Florida Souvenir Commemorative Serving Tray from Dudine’s first marriage. (She’ll never find it, and he can still “swear to god" he didn’t toss it.) Like all the deteriorating teflon-coated pans--a recommended daily intake for teflon specks has not been established yet. And that one flowery red plastic bowl--he doesn’t know why, just hates it.

(Note: when an atheist “swears to god”, it still counts as emphatic righteous insistence. No less likely a liar, though.)

For some reason, being really really really really sick of cleaning the kitchen does not stop the perpetual mess, nor make others want to clean it for you. It is there, every day; people eat. Being grateful for the food does not magically make cleaning up a heavenly joy. Only television can do that.

Surely, for every televised cooking show, there must be a clean-up crew. Could this work as a “reality show?”

“The World is Washing”: washed up celebrities doing menial (actual) work, in those monolithic television kitchens no normal human owns. High drama grunt work by clumsy pseudo-rich folk, angry 'cause this is the least demeaning work their agent could find for them. Preparing the way for a major cultural shift, in which males become the dominant dishwashers.

Of course that won’t sell. No one really wants to view reality when they turn on the amusement device. Reality is just off to their left where the day’s dishes are stacked--or strewn as the case may be. Nor will any of it magically vanish during the commercials.

So there it sits. Cooking, eating, cleaning up, at the greasy axle of the Great Wheel of Eternity. He will clean, but not today, too tired. Why bother? There will be further snacks!

 %$#@!

The Dangerous Kitchen

By Frank Zappa (1940-1993)

The dangerous kitchen
If it ain't one thing it's another
In the middle of the night when you get home
The bread things are all dry 'n' scratchy
The meat things
Where the cats ate through the paper
The can things with the sharp little edges
That can cut your fingers when you're not looking
The soft little things on the floor that you step on
They can all be DANGEROUS
Sometimes the milk can hurt you
(If you put it on your cereal
Before you smell the plastic container)
And the stuff in the strainer
Has a mind of its own
So be very careful
In the dangerous kitchen
When the night time has fallen,
And the roaches are crawlin'
In the kitchen of danger
You can feel like a stranger
The bananas are black
They got flies in the back
And also the chicken
In the dish with the foil
Where the cream is all clabbered
And the salad is frightful
Your return in the evening
Can be less than delightful
You must walk very careful
You must not lean against it
It can get on your clothing
It can follow you in
As you walk to the bedroom
And you take all your clothes off
While you're sleeping
It crawls off
It gets in your bed
It could get on your face then
It could eat your complexion
You could die from the danger
Of the dangerous kitchen
Who the f*ck wants to clean it?
It's disgusting and dirty
The sponge on the drainer
Is stinky and squirty
If you squeeze it when you wipe up
What you get on your hands then
Could un-balance your glands and
Make you blind or whatever
In the dangerous kitchen
At my house tonight