Boiling Point

When I was at Ricks College, I took a Chemistry for the Modern World class to fulfill a science requirement. I found the class quite informative and have never forgotten the valuable consumer lessons that I learned there.

For instance: I know what the octane numbers at the gas tank mean. The number represents the percent of pure gasoline found in that grade. The rest is well who really knows. But if you had 100% gas - it wouldn't be a liquid.

I learned that nutrasweet resembles a poisonous substance far to closely for my comfort. But it would never convert to that substance unless it reached a certain temperature awfully close to that of normal body temperature or comes into contact with aluminum. No, THANKS! I'll take my sweets with real sugar. It might make me fat, but it won't kill me.

I also learned that shampoo is acidic. It has to be acidic to wash your hair because hair is made up of amino ACIDS. And like solutions clean like solutions. But no one would put ACID in their hair for obvious reasons and so the manufacturers label shampoo as NON-alkaline to throw you off. But the opposite of alkaline IS ACIDIC. Ha! Clever aren't they?

The most valuable lesson was about TUMS - The manufacturer of TUMS is a sneaky devil. Tums is entirely made up of calcium and is about the same as eating a flavored piece of chalk. When your stomach is upset it is because it has produced too much HCl or Hydrochloric acid. That's the stuff that breaks down your food to digest it. Sometimes our tummies get a little ambitious and then - HEARTBURN! Yikes.

So calcium is that ingredient that breaks down the HCl and makes our tummies not "burn". Well it just so happens that the thing that calcium creates when breaking down the HCl actually makes your stomach produce MORE HCl. So the result is a little while after you get the relief your stomach is right back up there producing more acid. Ever wonder why TUMS comes in those big containers full? Once you take a TUMS, you have to keep on taking them. Great marketing tool, huh?

So - how do you get the cycle to stop? You have to add magnesium to that recipe so that your stomach will break down the HCl AND stop making more. That's why Rolaids or Maloox only comes in small rolls of 5 pills. One is all you need. I cringe when I see another victim fall prey to TUMS, but they have their agency, right?

Another thing that I learned was that every substance has a boiling point or a tempurature at which point the matter will start to boil. Salt is a catalist that lowers the boiling point of water so you can get your food to cook faster. It adds a nice little flavor too.

I was thinking about the boiling point last night and associated it with tolerance for cleanliness and clutter. I think when it comes to clutter we all have a different "boiling point."

For example mine is average, but is certainly higher than my husband's. I can look at clutter and some things bug me sooner than others. For instance, I can't stand toys on my rug. If they are scooted to the wall in a pile, I'm not so bothered - but I don't like them scattered about. However at some point I do reach my limit of tolerance and I have to go through all of them and reorganize.

Company is the salt to my water. When I am expecting company I seem to reach my tolerance level for clutter much quicker. Suddenly all those little things that only mildly bothered me seem to glare at me and they must be dealt with and NOW. I'm certain I was socialized this way by my mother.

Anger seems to be another catalist to my cleaning. But I don't prefer this method as it tends to come with other unpleasant side affects.

Pregnancy on the otherhand seems to raise the boiling point making it take much longer before I feel compelled to do something about the piles of clutter. Perhaps it's the constant fatigue or lack of energy to face what must be done.

Yesterday I hit my boiling point so to speak. A calm one with no catalist involved. I vacuumed, I did dishes, I did laundary, I cleaned bathrooms, I made my bed, I folded towels that have been sitting in a laundary basket for a couple of days and put them away in a nice neat pile. I even cleaned out the Cat litter (with gloves) and mopped the floors where the cat has taken to relieving herself in my laundary room. (Today is the last day as she is getting fixed as we speak and going out the door - tonight!) Then I vacuumed out my van and finished up with repacking and putting away all the camping gear from two weeks ago that my husband hastily threw on the garage floor in a pile when I asked him to unload it from the van for me in his limited spare time. I cleaned up messes that, for the most part, I did not contribute to.

I don't know when I will hit the boiling point again. The saddest part is that after my hard day's work, there wasn't much to show for it at the end of the day except for a few less piles of clutter. It's too bad only I was able to appreciate the results and only for a moment at that. I have heard that most mothers experience this phenomenon. I am not alone.

Perhaps this fact and the fatigue combined contributes to the level of my boiling point. After all, what is the point of all that effort when it never lasts for long and goes completely unacknowledged and unappreciated? Nevertheless I have seen others whose boiling point is higher than mine and some whose boiling point is lower. I reckon it doesn't really matter in the eternal scheme of things.

Maybe I'm in a minority club that doesn't enjoy housework. I don't really mind it. I even enjoy a clean house. What I don't enjoy is the constant undoing of my work. As disappointing as it may be, chaos is inevitable. The point is eventually making things orderly has to be done. So I do it, not because I love it, but because I'm a mom. That's what we do.