On the relations of Greek tragedies and cleaning

The ancient Greeks had a concept hamartia. Hamartia is a fatal flaw or error in the judgment of a person. Sometimes it could also be seen as a fatal flaw in the character of a person. Usually in the plays, for obvious dramatic reasons, it is of the hero´s. Hamartia is something that can not be avoided, it is so deeply linked in one´s personality and fate. Bear in mind though, that the flaw is not usually nor necessarily outright negative. It can be for example pride or love that leads to the hero´s downfall.

In Greek tragedies hamartia does not exist without peripeteia. A turn of events that is caused by the hero´s fatal flaw. And as we are talking about tragedies, this turn of events is never for the better. Just think of poor Oedipus.

In the light of recent events I have come into conclusion that my hamartia (or one of them, but this is the one that I can publicly write about) is quite clearly displayed in connection to cleaning or other household chores.

So, a few days ago a friend came over with a bottle, or two, of red wine. As he was obviously distressed, I decided to oblige him and enjoy a glass of ripe syrah with him whilst he and I poured our hearts out on various personal topics. It is not necessary to go deeper in details, let´s just say that the wine was consumed. (Also, it seems, am better at saying yes than am saying no.) Anyhow, sometime during the evening I noticed that there was some mysterious clear liquid on the shelf of my fridge. But as there was an interesting story going on, I decided to look into matter only the next morning. (After all, there is no time like tomorrow!)

Came next morning and I woke up early, about 6:30. I went to the refrigerator, opened the door and the floor of the fridge was filled with clear liquid that now I indentified as water. Apparently I had accidentally hit the unfreeze button previous night. The next 3 hours were spent frantically mopping, drying, breaking up the last pieces of ice stuck to the bottom of the freezer part of my fridge. (Some freezer, a teeny tiny box that freezes over.)

As I was scraping the railings and whatnot´s of the fridge I came across some mementos of the last time I unfroze it.

It was a last June and I was leaving city for six weeks the next morning. At about 07:00 pm I decided that now was the time to unfreeze fridge. After boiling and changing at least 30 litres of hot water in the dishes that I had placed inside the fridge, in hopes of that hot steam would accelerate the melting process, I called in the big guns: blow dryer, screwdriver that acted as a small scale chisel and wooden spatula that was used for leverage to try to remove the stubborn ice. Time must´ve been nearer to midnight.

Well, inspite the obvious obstacles and the excess time spent in the process, I decided to clean the fridge thoroughly. (After all, why go through so much trouble with only mediocre results.) I remembered seeing an episode of “How clean is your house?”, where a paste made out of baking soda was used to clean a fridge and give it a nice, fresh odour.

Happily I attacked the fridge with my paste. I do not know if I had gotten the ratio of water and soda wrong or what but the paste dispersed all over the fridge. It looked like a bag of cocaine had burst inside my fridge.

I wiped and I wiped and I wiped, but it seemed that the amount of the bloody paste did not diminish at all. Clock was nearing 04:00 am and I was nearing insanity and I was still wiping. (And of course there was still most of the packing to be done before leaving round noon.) At some point I had managed to get most of the stuff out. I decided to throw in the dish cloth and just try to be satisfied with the results which were not exactly the shiny, sparkly and fresh- as- mountain-air experience that I had imagined it would be. (Goes to show, do not believe everything that you see on TV. I can tell you right now, coca-cola is not as good a substance for cleaning your toilet seat as other detergents, specially meant for it, are.)

As I was still finding traces of dried baking soda a year later I came to the part in the plot what the aforementioned greeks called anagnorisis: recognition or realization about who I am and what my choices are really about.

My hamartia is my wish to avoid the mundane at all costs. (That and my curiosity and my passion for cleaning devices, tricks and detergents despite the fact that cleaning is propably the last thing on my list of things to do.)

I have a need to glitter (or pimp if you will) everyday chores to make them interesting or engaging enough. More often than once these little plans or spices backfire and I end up spending much more time and energy than a “normal” approach to things would require. In a way it is a terrible burden, this surrender to whims and “decoration”.

But on the other hand, isn´t it amazing how a small whirlpool fridge can contain not only food but also food for thought and ancient greek tragedies.