Cleaning and The Reuben

Cleaning

Cleaning is less about sanitation, and more about self education. Everybody has doubts; everybody has that existential moment at the tail end of a wine glass where they ask themselves “who am I” or “what have I become.” Don’t answer these questions with a thumb up your ass and a self-delusional fantasy; get up and start cleaning. It’s opening a dusty drawer and finding that sad, expired box of condoms that really capitalizes on your state of loneliness. It’s locating a pack of unopened, thawed corn dogs wedged between a broadsword and a spare tire which truly emphasizes your laziness and love of nerd culture. Rummage through old love letters to understand your incompetence at dating or calculate your manliness by counting the number of hot sauces in your fridge. The evidence of your life is sprawled out in an unorganized fashion, hiding among clothes, camouflaged as a bookmark, or lost in a shoebox. It’s time to start playing your own, personal game of Clue where each character is another one of your characteristics and each item or setting adding support for why you portray it. It’s time to put on your detective hat, start picking up the pieces you’ve left behind and cracking the case of who you really are.

The Reuben

I don’t think it’s a secret, I love reuben sandwiches. In my opinion, they are up there with the Mona Lisa and Egyptian Pyramids as one of man’s greatest achievements with the additional advantage of being edible. In a city of sandwiches, they are a castle among clay houses. For this reason, it is tattooed to my body and eating them has become part of my lifestyle. The reuben is a simple, but complex sandwich containing an awesome combination of bitter, sour, and sweet with a huge hint of salty beef. These features are placed between two slices of lightly toasted rye bread and served hot and kinda sloppy where the cross-section resembles a Mike Myers’ victim after several months of decomposing. Sadly, the description I entail to you now is one rarely seen in the wild. Restaurants today have gotten the gall to place this darling on their menu only to deliver something that wouldn't even be accepted in a small-town beauty pageant. It’s disgusting with many faults including not enough beef, sogginess, and the worse, complete dryness. This monstrous act not only discourages the average reuben-goer from ordering them anymore, but also gives a false impression to newcomers. If you’re going to represent, represent the real deal dawg. If not, don’t half-ass it and stick to hot dogs.