And Then I Shrank The Kitchen Table

The other day I was cleaning the house. Well actually, it was night. Like 2am night. Because as you know, I have five children under the age of seven. And if I ever want the house to look clean for more than .35 seconds, I have to clean it at night.

So anyway, I was sweeping the floor. I always start in my studio, sweep into the living room, then move to the foyer and sweep into the living room, and then move all that dirt into the kitchen where I deposit all of it under the kitchen table and then admire my handiwork wonder how on earth the floor could have possible gotten that dirty in a matter of hours. Truly though, the reason I do it that way is because I feel like it was worth it when I see a big pile of dirt over several smaller piles. Or something.

As I got into the kitchen and looked around at the crumbs all over the floor, mostly under and around the table, I began to consider how much the size of our table annoys me. You see, we have a square table. (We like to call it our poker table. Even though we never play poker on it.) And yes, we have a family of seven, six of which eat at the table several times each day. But the size prohibits me from doing two things:

1) wiping it down for one side, and
2) sweeping under it from one side.

(Are you seeing a theme here?)

Since I wipe down the table or sweep under the table a few times each day, it becomes cumbersome to me to have to walk all the way around the table doing these things each time, especially since the size of our table and the size of our kitchen are, shall we say, close in dimension. That is, there are walls on two sides of our table and they are in rather close proximity to the table. So, to sum up, the table is annoying.

So right then, at 2am, I decided I was over it. I set down the broom, pulled the leaf out of the table, placed it in the garage and pushed the table - now just two-thirds of the size it was moments ago - back together.

And then I threw a bowl of oranges on it and pretended I was Martha Stewart.



And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with my broom.