Icky-ness

Some years ago I was invited to be a judge at a Speech and Debate event for area schools held at the local high school. The session that I chose to judge was Dramatic Readings, and student I voted for to win did a dramatic reading of part of Robert Fulghum’s essay “Dinner Dandruff, a chapter from his book It Was on Fire when I Lay Down on It. This essay apparently has become a favorite of English teachers and can be found as part of examinations on the internet.

After the dishes are washed and the sink rinsed out, there remains in the strainer at the bottom of the sink what I will call, momentarily, some “stuff.” A rational, intelligent, objective person would say that this is simply a mixture of food particles too big to go down the drain, composed of bits of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and fiber. Dinner dandruff.

Furthermore, the person might add that not only was the material first sterilized by the high heat of cooking, but further sanitized by going through the detergent and hot water of the dishpan, and rinsed. No problem.

But any teenager who has been dragooned into washing dishes knows this explanation is a lie. That stuff in the bottom of the strainer is toxic waste—deadly poison—a danger to health. In other words, about as icky as icky gets.

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands—BARE HANDS—and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage…

The entire chapter is available here:

http://englishiva1011.pbworks.com/f/DINNDAND.PDF

I was reminded of this essay last night as I finished washing the dishes. The kitchen sick is divided. On one side I wash dishes in a dish pan because the stopper that is supposed to go in that drain does not hold water. Attached to the drain on the other side is the garbage disposal. A mesh screen fits in that drain to stop utensils and catch dinner dandruff so it can be dumped into the compost bucket.

Because I was not “thinking” about what  I was doing, I removed the screen -- it was really gunked up and needed to be cleaned --and then I dumped the dishwater and watched a measuring spoon go into the open maw of the garbage disposal. Not wishing to damage the measuring spoon and/or the garbage disposal, there was nothing else for it but to stick my hand down there and retrieve the spoon (note to self: always, always, always dump the water first and then clean the screen)

Quite icky indeed.