Scientists will tell you that matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
I disagree.
Wednesdays are my busiest days. On Wednesdays I cook the food that has to be done at the last minute, a photographer comes over to take the lovely pictures you see of the food, and then I typically write the story that accompanies the photographs of the food.
It’s a long day, and that doesn’t even include the cleaning. The cleaning is the worst part.
The cleaning is when matter spontaneously generates itself, and science be damned.
On one recent Wednesday, I used nearly every sauté pan that I own, plus most of the pots and perhaps a dozen dishes. I used several cutting boards, a multitude of knives, waxed paper, plastic wrap, fresh produce, and, now that I look at a photo of the carnage, a tape measure.
I also, incidentally, cooked a total of 28 eggs. That doesn’t really have much to do with the subject at hand because I quickly disposed of the shells, but I still find it startling.
The more immediate point that I want to make is that between the time the photographer left and the time I started to write, I cleaned for perhaps 15 or 20 minutes. In that time I entirely filled a large dishwasher with dishes and silverware.
And when I looked around the kitchen, it was every bit as dirty as it had been before I started cleaning. Maybe dirtier.
Somehow, I was living inside a horror film. The mess is coming from inside the house!
It was like one of those zombie flicks where everywhere you look there are more and more zombies, or dishes.
It was like seeing time-lapse photography of kudzu moving relentlessly across the southern states and it just. Can’t. Be. Stopped.
It was like looking down at my leg and seeing gangrene’s inexorable, deadly upward spread. But with pots and pans.
How is this even possible? Logically, if you have a certain number of dishes and many of them are in the dishwasher, there should be fewer on the counter. And yet I have the photographic evidence that proves otherwise.
Scientists will also tell you that energy also can neither be created nor destroyed. Again, I disagree.
When I began to tackle the mountains of food and dish detritus, I had a certain level of energy. Let’s call it about 50% of my usual energy store; all the cooking and photographing takes a lot out of me even though I am not the one with the camera.
Fifteen or 20 minutes later, my energy level was well into the red. That first bit of cleaning had only taken a minor amount of effort, yet my energy dropped by at least 35 or 40 percent.
In that respect, it reminds me of my phone. I really need to get a new battery. And so does my phone.
Every time a pile of dishes grows even while I am washing them, I am reminded more and more of why people like to go out to eat. It isn’t the cooking that they mind so much, it is the cleaning.
If my theory of the Unequal Expenditure of Energy is correct, then millions of people who dine out in restaurants are fully charged and ready to tackle any kitchen cleaning chores that need to be done.
They are welcome to stop by my house. Any Wednesday will do.
