Johnny Jones Convicted for Making Messy Sandwich!
Early
Saturday Morning Jane was in the kitchen. She was furiously scrubbing at the
hard water stains on the sink and dishwasher and gently wiping the Tuscany glass
on the cabinets and windows. At last, when everything seemed to sparkle and
shine, she distinctly remembers throwing away the last paper towel she used and
heading out of the kitchen in the direction of her room. On her way out she
even caught a whiff of the clean that was then present in the kitchen and
sighed happily.
10 minutes later Jane reentered the Kitchen and screamed,
“MOM!!” as she fell to the ground in tears.
“It was like I had never even done any work in there.” Said
Jane, eyes still puffy, when asked about her reaction to the whole situation.
“I knew something was wrong with the way she called me”, said
Mother, “Jane is not one to make a big deal out of anything small or
insignificant she really is a level headed young lady.”
Mother, was the first one to see the horrific scene in the
kitchen, now known as “The Kitchen Disaster”. There was ketchup, along with the
bottle, on the counter. The double paned windows had obviously been splattered
with a substance that our analysts found to be pickle juice. There were also
greasy smudges on the door handles of the stainless steel fridge and the mahogany
knife drawer. There was a tomato stem and juice, cheese curds, and lettuce
shavings on a cutting board on the enameled lava countertop. The incident was
extremely tragic.
“After I got over the shock of it all I decided to follow the
trail of bread crumbs,” Said Jane. She and Mother investigated together.
The trail was said to have gone all around the island, then
through the kitchen entryway and then stopped at the bottom of the staircase.
“When I got to the stairs my plush multicolored shag carpet was too hard to
track the crumbs through.” Said Mother. Little Jimmy was there crawling down
the stairs with his bottle in hand. He was one of the five that needed
inspecting now checked off the list.
Mother and Jane decided to knock on the doors of the three other
boys’ bedrooms upstairs. First they found Jacob. He was in his lazy-boy eating
Cheetos from a popcorn bowl and playing video games. He was highly involved in
the game and not making much of a mess at all.
They went to the next door to find Jeremiah who was reading
and studying for class. It was obvious that he wasn’t the culprit because he
was sitting at the desk with a text book and three cans of Monster drinks. “I normally
would have gotten after Jeremiah for overdosing on Caffeine,” said mother, “But
we had a bigger problem on our hands. The Kitchen Disaster simply could not be
overlooked.”
The last room to be checked was Johnny’s. When they went to
his room they found it vacant. All that was there was an empty plate with what
seemed to be a trace of pickle juice but no one could really say at the time.
Mother went to Father and asked him to hold a family council
meeting since the tracking down the old fashioned way had not been successful.
Father sent out a text to everyone to report to the dining room in 10 minutes.
We all gathered in a timely manner. “I was thinking we were
going to plan a family vacation or something since it is close to Christmas,”
said Johnny. Little did he know what was soon to follow would be the opposite
of vacation, at least for him.
Father began the council meeting with the normal welcome
routine. Then he called Jane up to the front to explain the story. “I almost
burst into tears again as I recounted what injustice had been done in the
kitchen this morning. Just thinking about how much I had gone through that
morning. I was supposed to go to the mall with my friends but instead I had to
find the culprit of The Kitchen Disaster,” said Jane. Indeed it was a tragic
incident and she has the right to feel that way.
“We have been trying to have more justice in this family,”
said father, “so even though we already had a suspect, we wanted everyone to
have a chance to defend themselves. We knew what was at stake here. Cleanliness
should be an important attribute for all.”
After a detailed tour of the kitchen father went on to question
each of the boys. I also was on the list of suspects, even though my room is
not upstairs and I am an entirely responsible adult, but the mystery was solved
before he got to me. The following is the transcript of the session. Father (F)
is doing the questioning and the first two letters of each name (Ji, Je, Ja,
Jo) signal the person answering:
F: Little Jimmy, did you make a sandwich this morning?
Ji: dada
F: I’ll take that as a no.
Ji: No
F: Next please. Let’s start with a better first question. Jeremiah,
where were you at precisely 10:26 this morning?
Je: I was doing homework in my room.
F: And how long had you been doing said homework?
Je: Since 7:00 this morning. You know I have to go to work in
20 minutes right, dad?
F: Thank you for your time, please go get ready for work. We
should be finished here soon. Jacob, I would like your answer to the first
question.
Ja: I was in my room, which I had just cleaned, eating Cheetos
and playing world of war craft.
F: You say you were eating Cheetos. At what time did you enter
the kitchen to get those?
Ja: Well I think it was about 10:20.
F: And at 10:20 there was no one in the kitchen?
Ja: Well, on my way out I did see Johnny In the hallway.
F: That’ll do son. Johnny, were you in the hallway at about
10:21 this morning?
Jo: Yeah
F: Well…where were you going?
Jo: To…the bathroom.
F: And…anywhere else?
Jo: Okay, okay! It was me. I admit it! But why is it such a
big deal? It is only a little crumbs and pickle juice.
F: It was not ONLY crumbs and pickle juice. There were also
tomatoes and cheese involved. We have talked about this before Johnny. You know
how the family suffers when the house is supposed to be clean but, because of
someone else’s carelessness, it is not. We need to keep up our image as the
Jones’s. And that is not possible if in only 5 minutes from the time Jane
leaves the kitchen sparkling clean we know that The Kitchen Disaster happens.
You are in deep young man.
Jo: whatever.
F: **response from father withheld, at his request**
-End of transcript-
Johnny shed no tears but he did pull a few faces. The verdict
was that he will be missing all family activities for the holiday. He was also
sent the clean the entire kitchen with a toothbrush. Mom got our neighbor Mr.
Clean to come and show him how to do a good job. When asked about his services
Mr. Clean said, “One day Johnny could be strong and have a cool earing, like me,
if he learns to be clean.”
Justice has been served. We can only imagine what would have
happened if The Kitchen Disaster had lasted longer than it did as it was.
This has been Julissa Jones. Big sister, journalist and
bathroom cleaner in the Jones’ home. Until next time. █
