Thursday, June 04, 2009

Lessons Learned from The Rat

Our kitchen has been reconfigured because of dhundunhdhun, 'The Rat'. Ah you dirty rat.

It's not a permanent reconfiguring, yet it did reveal an interesting thinking pattern.

The lower cabinets are now empty. The upper cabinets now contain 9/10ths of the most used items in the kitchen. The other items have been relegated to . . . anywhere else except their original location. It's chaos, sort of, anyway.

We have a lid rack. It was previously kept in a lower cabinet. It now occupies a dining room chair, which is about 15 steps out of the kitchen and away from the stove top.

I thought I was being helpful by placing the lids for the most used pots next to their respective pots in the upper cabinets. You know I thought I was saving some steps and eliminating the wondering and wandering around part of is it dirty or stored away, etc. I thought.

Only I made a mistake.

I didn't communicate this helpful move to either of my roommates.

So imagine my chagrin when I started preparing a simple fare for dinner and couldn't find any lids. I blew mine. I became a screaming pressure cooker lid locked tightly in place and hissing for release. I noticed what was happening and dialed down the heat with some good long deep breaths. Good thing I'm sealed fairly tightly and actually read the stuff I downloaded from Havi or someone could have been hurt.

I finished preparing the meal sans lids. I ate the meal, washed the pots, didn't wash any lids and placed the leftovers in bowls under foil. Afterward, I did a quick search and rescue mission and returned the lids to the adjacent spaces next to pots and crockery.

Only then did I ask two simple questions of my roommates. 1. Who moved the lids? and 2. Where do you think they should go?

I received the following response.

Male roommate: "What lids? I haven't seen any lids. I don't know what you're talking about."
Female roommate: "I moved the lids. I put them in the lid rack which is where they should go."
Me: "Why should they go in the lid rack?"
FR: "That's where we've always kept the lids."
Me: "Have we always kept the lid rack in the dining room?"
FR: "Well...(haltingly with a funny look on her face) no...the uh lid rack is in a chair in the dining room because you know. . .The Rat."
MR: mumbling to himself ". . .now if I could just find my glasses. I could read these here directions on this poison you bought. You paid $32 for some poison?"
Me: "Yes I did." (Hearing internal voice going into condescending mode and hoping, anxiously hoping I wasn't dripping with condescension as I said,) Does that mean the lids have to be in the lid rack because that's where they've always been? Can they go beside the pots in the upper cabinets for now?
FR: "But they go in the lid rack."
Me: . . . walking away

The lesson learned - ingrained thinking habits are hard to overcome especially when they aren't noticed by the thinker of the ingrained thought.

Yep, I'm living life outside convention alright.

Yes, the lids somehow mysteriously end up back in the lid rack in the dining room and sadly The Rat is still an unwanted guest. Obviously there are more lessons to learn. erm Yay. (Yes that is a sarcastic yay.)


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