Daughter 1 has never, in her 16 and a half years of life, ever been sick and by that I mean thrown up. When she reminded me of this fact the other day, I could hardly believe it. However, having had enough time on my hands this half term to actually clean my kitchen cupboards, I can now completely understand why. They were filthy! I have been feeding my family food from bowls and plates that are kept in these cupboards for the best part of five years and they are utterly disgusting. Which is great, because it means that all the kids have developed an iron constitution and it is for this reason, I have definitely decided, that daughter 1 has never puked. Nevertheless, I did give them a cursory wipe and then turned my attentions to the fridge. Now, since the fateful morning that step son’s bright red fishing maggots, yes, the whole stork margarine container full of them, escaped from the fridge and into every corner of the kitchen, the fridge has never, ever been the same…and neither have I.
I came downstairs early one Sunday, to find daughters 3 and 4 on their knees with a dustpan and brush, desperately trying to sweep the maggots up in their hundreds, as a pool of red wriggling creatures slid, on mass, out of the top shelf of the fridge, across the kitchen floor and under the skirting boards, leaving a trail of red dye behind them. Today, a good two years later, there are still traces of that red dye in the fridge that simply will not be scrubbed away. It’s only food colouring, step son had told me at the time. I wasn’t impressed.
Bearing all of this in mind, the likelihood is that daughter 1’s first chundering experience is going to be self (alcohol) induced and neither I, nor the state of my cupboards, will have any influence over it whatsoever.