Apple-pie Order

I like things to be in order, apple-pie order, as they say, or at least as they used to say. I even like my apple pies to be in apple-pie order. It’s not a crime. I just feel that things have their place and that the space of that place should be taken up with the things that belong there, rather than with the things that definitely do not belong there at all. In almost perfect contrast to this, Chau (to whom the title ‘guest’ seems no longer applicable, given that, since moving in with me for the lockdown period, is still here, enjoying this marvellous ‘new normal’ of the post-lockdown world, comfy, secure, and with no apparent plans of leaving) prefers disarray; it is a case of apple-pie order versus durian disarray, if you like. It’s not her fault, of course, and in a way – though not a liveable or practical way or sustainable way – it may, in the right light, or at least after a few drinks, even be considered one of her more endearing qualities.

When it comes to mess, Chau is like a dangerously thin person with anorexia nervosa who looks in the mirror and sees only fat. In a similar way, Chau just doesn’t see mess. Chau could look over a car accident and see only order and perfect alignment, with nothing out of place, as though it were all designed that way. It is not the case that she is not a detail person. It’s not that. It’s just that the details she concerns herself with are never any of the kinds of details that a normal orderly person would concern themselves with, such as – and this is only one example of the innumerable – closing a cupboard completely so that the little space left between the door and the cupboard interior is no longer space. For this reason, I find myself shadowing Chau around the apartment, following behind her like a little neatness shadow, a little mouse of order, closing cupboards that she has left ajar, turning off lights of rooms recently departed, closing windows, picking things up from the floor.

There are two distinctive aspects to Chau’s domiciliary activities worth noting. The first, concerns itself with precariousness, the second, with endurance. In the case of the first, when Chau places something on a surface, such as a table – for example, her iPad – she gets distracted halfway through the process and the thing being placed fails to find itself securely on said surface. I see her do this. She lines up the table top, begins sliding the object onto the surface, but then something else suddenly takes her attention and her head swivels away from the task at hand, and the project is abandoned at just over the halfway point. The object then becomes a thing balanced (precariously) between the stability of the table surface (let’s say 55%) and the ‘neverland’ of thin air. Now, if from that moment on, nothing in the house stirred, such as a breathe of wind or a Glenn who happened to be walking past this site of precariousness, all would be well, but this is simply not the way the world works: things move, necessarily so, and so things need to be securely placed.

The second characteristic, endurance, again, concerns itself with the placement of objects. Chau works in the hospitality trade and is connected, networked, linked-in with all kinds of suppliers. She can get anything you want: gumbo, sushi, a tarte aux praline or a prime Argentinian steak, and the things she sources often find their way into my apartment, or are stored there as a midway point, in transit, awaiting further directions. Chau is always on the phone making deals and I never know what will come in the door next. One moment she is sitting on the sofa, the phone rings, and then, wham! she’s out the door to meet a supplier downstairs, only to re-enter pushing a large box across the floor containing 20 kilograms of avocados which absolutely now needs to be parked right in front of the door. Such an event then creates further complex ‘knock-on’ events for days, as there are only so many ways that two people can eat 20 kilograms of avocados before they over ripen. The thing is, when Chau places something on the floor, it then begins its new life in that spot. For weeks and months – future archaeologists will have a field day with Chau – from that moment on, she will step over it, walk around it, but never actually see it. It becomes what I call the infrastructure of the invisible, part of the natural order of things, a thing that is there and yet not there.

We have something of an ant problem in the apartment and they get into anything that even vaguely resembles food. What they love most is the sugar in the sugar bowl and it is for this reason that I have a sugar bowl with an air-tight seal that guarantees an ant-free experience, so long as – you guessed it – the lid is pushed down 100% of the way. These are small ants and they can get into or out of anything; they are the Harry Houdinis of the ant world. The other day I showed Chau the sugar bowl, inside of which, many small black ants were running around in a sugar-dependent frenzy, like 6-year old kids with cans of Coke. I pointed out how the lid of the sugar bowl had not been pushed down completely. Though invisible to the naked eye, there must have been the tiniest little gap where the lid had not perfectly sealed, a gap that then became a kind of ant freeway, an entomological Sugar Express.

Yet, despite this overwhelming evidence staring her right in the face, Chau refused to admit wrongdoing, and even suggested that maybe I was the one who had been derelict in the closing of the sugar bowl. Me?! How could it have been me?! It’s not that the case that she lies. It’s not that. It is more the Donald Trump-effect: that she sees another version of reality that is equally as real and as true as the more globally-accepted perspective belonging to the sane, the logical or, in this case, the orderly. When Trump is presented with video evidence that clearly shows him saying such-an-such, he immediately tries to discredit the video, the nature of video, the nature of media, or the videographer who filmed the event, and begins to construct an alternative reality, not a lie as such, but a thing that he truly believes to be the case, a new kind of history. Similarly, Chau truly believes it to be the case that she pushed that sugar bowl lid all the way down and she immediately goes on a campaign that aims to discredit the integrity of either the sugar or the bowl, to blame me, or to credit the ants, already endowed with kinds of superpowers, with new kinds of sugar-bowl-lid-opening superpowers, and even as we debate this state of affairs, we are standing in a kitchen of half-opened cupboards, items precariously placed on benches and things left for days right in the middle of the floor, none of which actually appears in Chau’s world in any sense of it actually existing as a thing in the world.

I think part of the problem is that the kitchen, which includes the sugar bowl, is now considered Chau’s domain. It is not that I cannot or do not want to cook. It’s not that. It is more the case that, in this new world, I can’t, in that the opportunity doesn’t really come up for me to do so. Chau, being Vietnamese, cooks Vietnamese food, which is great, except that Vietnamese food necessitates 5-times the number of utensils in cooking and eating, and the kitchen fast becomes a scene from Slaughterhouse-Five. We are only two people but I end up washing five pairs of chopsticks every night. When it comes to washing, chopsticks are like socks, but instead of losing them, we gain them.