Dark Places 1 : Behind the kitchen bin

In my defense, I never SEE this bit of the kitchen. Years go by, without me looking behind the kitchen bin. The lifeforms that were growing there kept themselves to themselves and we lived in symbiotic harmony for several years with a very simple treaty of peace that worked for both sides. That was until my boyfriend…MOVED THE BIN. And I was forced to massacre a small community of woodlice, furry feeler people and something that could once have been half a pita bread although now had a face.
On the other side of the kitchen, I tackled ‘the other scary place behind the little curtain I put up in the corner to hide the stuff I shoved there and forgot about’. In this area I found a bag of rice from 1997 and a life-form that may have once belonged to the potato family. It blinked at me and asked if I would please shut the curtain again because he and his family were trying to sleep. At least I think it was a potato…it could have been a dinosaur poo. My youngen says dinosaurs haven’t roamed these parts for millions of years. However, I haven’t cleaned that corner of the kitchen for just as long, so it is feasible.
Don’t judge me for my dark places. We all have them. Even my clean freak friends have what is known as ‘the shit cupboard’ somewhere in their house. I remember making friends with a lovely local lady called Julie who kindly invited my family to play dates at her house when we first moved here. She had an immaculate home, an immaculate garden, immaculate children (and for pre-schoolers that in itself is a miracle akin to getting a man to walk on the moon), and she herself was immaculate at all times. She was also a lovely person, but I was suspicious of her perfection and initially found it hard to relax with her. I kept her friendship at an arm’s length because such perfection was reminiscent of a Stepford Wife and made me a little on edge. But one time I was at her house I needed the loo and accidentally opened the wrong door. Instead of her immaculate loo that I had been expecting to find behind an immaculate door (all my doors have smudgy finger prints all over them), I found her Shit Cupboard. Which was actually a Shit Garage full of all kinds of shit, rammed up to its eyeballs. It was such a shock, I could have been walking into Narnia, or some other parallel Universe. The look of embarrassment on Julie’s face that I had found her hidden imperfect place was pure gold. From that moment on I allowed myself to love her and relax with her because her dark places were just as terrifying as mine. We all have them – even if it’s just a shoe box under a bed, or a bathroom drawer full of nonsense, or a shed crammed with things we never use. It’s part of the human condition to hoard crap, broken stuff and dusty greasy things, just in case we ever need them. Don’t deny it. Lying is a sin.
Back dealing with my own dark places, prolonged contact to Cillit Bang and Mr Muscle seems to have given me the kind of skin peel that rich women pay a fortune to get at Harley Street. Chances are the kitchen will be mucked up back to former sloppy standards long before my boyfriend visits again and sees the evidence of my love and devotion, but never let it be said that I don’t have the makings of a true domestic goddess!
Marvel at these truly genuine before and after pictures of the area behind the kitchen bin. Please note the bag of plumber’s fixings in the first picture, left by a plumber who came to replace a bit of leaky pipe behind the washing machine, ‘just popped out to his car to get a spanner’ and was literally never seen again. Some people are just not ready to face the Dark Places. He probably still suffers from nightmares or PTSD just thinking about mine. Wimp.