On the eve of our daughter’s departure to study a semester abroad, my wife at least wasn’t impressed. “She thinks eggs should come with a meter that let you know when they’re boiled,” she hissed at me because I’d praised her maiden effort at poaching eggs, even though they were under-cooked and over-peppered. “It’s the first time she’s made anything in the kitchen,” I reminded her. “It’s the first time she’s entered the kitchen without having an allergic reaction,” agreed my wife.
While my wife tends to exaggerate, I too worried about our daughter’s extended stint away from home. A few days ago she’d taken lessons in doing the laundry. “You first soak the clothes in warm water,” her mother advised her. “But that’ll make them wet,” the poor child figured. “That’s the idea,” my wife said, “then you rub them with soap.” “I don’t use soap,” our daughter reminded her, “can I rinse the clothes with a face-wash instead?” Perhaps my wife is right after all.
So she sat her daughter down for a tête-à-tête. “Clothes don’t have feet to walk into a wardrobe on their own,” she told her, “you have to put them in. Plates and glasses come without self-wash facilities, they need to be cleaned. Ditto the dishes. Garbage needs to be taken out. Beds require to be made — every day. Books taken out of bookshelves can’t automatically put themselves back. The fridge does not replenish itself on its own, you need to go out and buy things to put in it.” “Oh dear,” said our daughter, looking pale, “real life is worse than a horror film.”
She had a lot of learning in store — and telling the detergent from the soap was the easy part. “For instance,” said my wife, “you need to put bread into the toaster to get a toast. Cold coffee is not a natural beverage, it requires to be made with milk. You cannot boil potatoes in the bath when you’re taking a hot shower. And if you don’t close the lid on the cheese tin, the bacteria will grow feet and jump off the shelf.”
By now our daughter was writing copious reminders to herself on her laptop. “Apparently,” read one entry, “the entity that went around the home switching off lights and the television set, and putting the caps back on the toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles, was not some genie but my dad — these things have been hidden from me.” And, “Oh my gosh, when the doorbell rings, there’ll be nobody to answer it.” And later, “I have just learned that you need oil to cook. I thought oil was the thing the driver puts in his hair to smell up the car and annoy me. I’ll never eat again.”
This morning my wife wrote her a list. “Ham and salami can be consumed as they are but meat, fish and chicken require cooking. Do not boil, fry or sauté fruits. You cannot eat vegetables raw. Pudding has sugar in it that makes you fat. Biscuits make you fat. Chocolate makes you fat. Bread makes you fat. If you do not stir food on the range, it will burn and set the apartment on fire. In case of fire, call the fire department instead of taking pictures to download on Facebook. Vitamin supplements do not require cooking but cannot be substituted for food. Love, Mom.”
This morning I saw my daughter unspooling a fresh roll of toilet paper to fit into the holder. “There, that’s done,” she said in triumph. Later, my wife gestured me to see how she’d managed to fit the roll on to the soap dispenser stand. Maybe vitamin supplements won’t be such a bad way to survive after all.