Chores

Dear Diary,

Today is my turn to do the household chores - cleaning, scrubbing, washing, vacuuming, mopping.. the whole deal.

I take a little break from my busy schedule today to make a quick entry. Because I want to remember today forever. I want to remember it as the day I bleached everything.

There had been some stubborn stains in the kitchen and the bathroom that just weren't coming off, no matter what we did to them. But this morning, I had bought a bleach spray to try on them.

So I come home from the store, get done with the dusting and vacuuming, put on my rubber gloves, and get down to business. I spray some on the sink in the kitchen, and what do you know! Right in front of my eyes, the stain disappears! It is like magic. I can barely contain my glee.

I then turn the spray towards the counter, and poof! The stains disappear! I resist the temptation to get on top of the kitchen table and start doing the Macarena, I am so happy. I then turn the spray nozzle towards the refrigerator. I feel like one of the Men in Black, shooting down aliens and watching them turn into mush in front of my eyes. I shoot down some of those disgusting stains in the refrigerator. It sparkles back at me. I am on cloud nine.

The situation starts to take control of me. I picture each stain as a particular problem in my life, spray bleach on it, and watch it disappear. Before I know it, I am spraying it on everything.

With a glint in my eye I turn towards the bathroom. But before I do, I take a look around, and realize what I've done. Everything is bleached. The kitchen rags and hand towels are not the color they used to be. There is a circle of a peculiar shade of orange in the middle of the brown shirt I am wearing. There are white spots in the shape of every country I've visited on the wooden kitchen table. And then, the worst. On the same table, I see my roommate's folder, on which she had glued some of her photographs. On closer inspection I realize that her face is missing from some of them.

Shoving the folder at the back of her pile of textbooks, I sit down in front of the computer to pen down this Pendora's box of feelings that has erupted from me today. Excitement, wonder, thrill, power, dismay, fear, and ultimately, regret.

I have tasted power today, dear diary. Real power. And I have misused it. One good thing came out of it though. Since I now know the side effects, I will be careful in the future. This experience has taught me caution. And it is with this caution that I prepare myself to attack the bathroom next. But that will come later. Right now I am going to run to the store and buy a pack of colored markers, so I can put some of the color back in the various objects around the apartment before my roommates get back.