At school we had a little room sandwiched by the corridor to the side entrance and the downstairs toilets (very nice).
In the room was a counter, a sink, and, most importantly, an enormous bread bin and toaster.
Of a weekend, 50 adolescent boys with appetites the size of Texas would descend on this source of vital food. Vital as you couldn't be expected to last a whole weekend without several in-between meal snacks.
To be fair, the room was heavily patronised during the week also. However the key difference at weekends was that nobody cleaned the room from mid-Friday to Monday morning.
By the end of Sunday, all the available surfaces were a riot of breadcrumbs, spilt tea, blobs of condiment and, frequently, completely unidentifiable substances. The edges of the counters were of course the #1 convenient place to remove margarine, peanut butter and other leftovers from your knife.
Why not use the sink, I hear you ask? Because that was invariably filled with what can best be described as brown slurry. Also, I don't even want to start discussing the state of the dish towels.
There really is no point to this little story except to suggest that hygiene and a shared sense of responsibility for the state of the kitchen does not come naturally to males. This should come as no surprise to any woman who has had a male flatmate (husbands are different as they can be bullied into being a bit cleaner).
On a passing note, the fiance of my flatmate came to visit us once and commented that my bath towel did not appear to have been washed since her last visit a month previously. I posited my "towel theory" that, as I was clean when I used the towel, it would not become dirty and thus didn't need washing.
Logic is a wonderful thing
2 comments:
Yes. I am just trying to imagine the equivalent kitchen at a girls' school. I think it would be almost pathologically clean?
Boys? Used to someone else clearing up after them. Nothing inherent about it. We just stop clearing up after you, and everything will be righted in a few centuries or so.
your towel theory is disgusting. enough said.
in any shared flat situation there's always someone who breaks first I find in the cleanliness stakes. In an exception that proves the rule kind of way the most slovenly housemate I ever had was a woman, who just didn't seem to care or notice washing piling up, dust mounting etc etc. However my other housemate was a fastidious gay man who would inevitably be the one moved to do something about it...
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