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Cleaning

I discovered the summer before entering college that the tool that most resembled my leadership style was the plunger. A plunger, you see, is used to suck all the crap from the toilet to allow the machine to once again function. A plunger can only be used in extremely dire times, when the routine act of flushing the toilet fails. Thus the plunger is a once a month type of instrument, used for the short term goal of unclogging impurity and evil.

With that, I have spent a good many hours cleaning today. I have decided that cleaning after men is probably the worst type of occupation that exists. For the past 6 years, I've share a bathroom with my younger brother. Like all boys, he is dirty. I cannot say that I enjoy cleaning after my brother, or that I would even anticipate such a demeaning task later when I live with my husband inshallah, but there is the challenge of purging a space of evil that I find absolutely exhilarating. Lucky for my brother, I derive a strange inexplicable pleasure from cleaning the bathroom. The challenge of cleaning not only the toilet, but the bathtub, sink, and floors is enough to make me swoon. This task could never happen without TI and Common blaring through my walls as I bleach, disinfect, sanitize, and deodorize the disgusting filth that is a shared bathroom. I cannot explain my feeling of accomplishment just as I cannot fathom why males are so damn dirty.

Last Saturday, I invited Musa and Deepti over to the homestead for some quality eating with my family. I felt it was my duty to feed my Muslim brother, Musa who seemed malnourished since he moved into my rundown neighborhood of Jamaica. Deepti is simply marvelous company and needs no pretext to be invited. That weekend, I was engaged in some heavy cleaning.

This weekend, too, seems to be one of cleaning. Today, my parents are throwing a melad or get-together for Saadat and me since we both move away to college in a few days. These two weekends of cleaning have taught me (1) you can spend your life cleaning and never be done with it (2) cleaning for guests is a necessity, a moral obligation that is in itself rewarding (3) women clean for many reasons including the desire to do things for individuals they care about--i.e. the incompetent little brother. It all goes back to the plunger, the plunger that sucks up a lot of crap for the sake of overall superior functioning of the the machine.

Comments

  1. Anonymous8/28/2005

    "Like all boys, he is dirty." Makes me appreciate studies like this one - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1749346,00.html

    :)

    ReplyDelete

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