The Stages of Grief While Cleaning a Kitchen

Water was everywhere. I was completely overwhelmed. The fumes in my apartment were overpowering, and I could feel my throat burning from inhaling them for too long. With soaking feet, I trudged over to the window and stuck my head outside, breathing in the clean air. It was delicious. I hadn't realized that I was crying.

Cleaning my kitchen is hard. Really, really hard. I seem to be the only one who cleans up her dishes immediately after using them, so there is more often than not a huge stack of dishes in the sink. It drives me crazy.

The smell of bleach was nauseating and my dishwasher was exploding, literally. Soapy water was gushing all over the floor, leaving me stranded and alone. I felt myself going through the cycles of grief over the mess I had created in my kitchen: first, denial. This is not happening. The dishwasher is fine. There is not water all over the place. Second, anger. Why is this happening to me? It's not fair! All I was trying to do was clean up! I didn't do anything to deserve this. Then, barganing. God, if you stop this dishwasher from exploding, I swear I'll handwash the dishes for the rest of my life. (This was probably a lie. Also, by this time, I had moved away from the window and was staring helplessly at the dishwasher, dripping rags in hand.) I fell into a brief state of depression next. Why bother clean it up? There's just too much water. There's too much to clean. Maybe I'll just go to bed and pretend like I had no idea it was happening.

Eventually I learned to acccept the fact that the dishwasher was exploding. I seemed to jump back into the anger stage: I grabbed my keys in a huff and ran to my car, ignoring the calls from the boys loitering around pool. Walmart in Utah on a Saturday night is a really interesting pace, mostly because it is so crowded. Every Saturday night, everyone comes out of their hobit-holes and gathers at the local Walmart. As I was already angry, this drove me nuts. I swore like a sailor when I dropped the paper towels I was balancing on my knee, enough that everyone around me stopped and looked at me. I was too annoyed to feel embarassment. I used my Frebreeze as a weapon while battling the crowd of 20 someodd teenagers outside of the door. Literally. I sprayed them. I am not proud of this.

When I got back to my apartment, my roommate was standing in the kitchen, laughing so hard she was crying. I had used the wrong soap, which caused the overflow of bubbles and water all around us. She thought it was wildly funny. I, on the other hand, did not, and continued to swear as I started mopping up the soapy, watery mess. I cycled through the stages of grief again, this time mourning my reputation for having any semblance of a brain and the death of my Saturday night.