Spent hours cleaning my room today. There's been a spate of renovation around the house, digging up dead dust bunnies and immortalizing insects onto the walls by painting them.
Anyway, my table was covered with dust and I ran out to the yard to grab a rag from the rag pile. Came into my room, and as I was wiping the slate clean I was hit by this memory. Of a lady I met in China, who worked as a kitchen cook. She was six months pregnant, and she had a toddler constantly running around the kitchen as she prepared meals. You can imagine the state of hubbub the kitchen was constantly in, with oversized woks and pans capable of dishing out grub enough for twenty.
Someone in the adjacent kitchen (yes, there were two separate rooms) screamed out for a rag to wipe the hob with. Seeing a white rag stashed between the edge of two pots, I grabbed it and started moving towards the other kitchen. At least, it used to be white before being splattered with brown dirt marks and absorbing a perpetual yellow stain throughout.
The cook came rushing after me and said, "No no no, not that rag!" And stuffed a deep brown rag into my hands instead. "This, is for wiping the baby's face."
I was flummoxed, but I hope it didn't show on my face. That yellowed, grubby rag was for wiping the baby's face ?!?!?! (The exclamation marks were quite literally exploding in my brain like National Day fireworks.)
So today, I was cleaning my table. I was thinking about the pile of rags in my yard, all of which are considerably clean, unyellowed, and possibly quite useful for cleaning many a child's precious face.
Who would have thought a rag could get one so soddy sentimental.
