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 The Probability of Spoons
by Patrick Clapp
 Cleaning. I dislike the activity but savor the effect. There are three reasons why I go above and beyond the necessary apartment navigation inspired half-hearted attempts to keep clutter and abandon at bay: The girl, the brain, and the intrusion of an insane world into a sane existence. I have suddenly, in a flash of yellow and white light, to the congratulations of my friends and acquaintances, turned thirty. And thirty is such a delicious number. For example:
Thirty has factors of one, two, three, five, six, ten, fifteen, and thirty.
The sum of the first four square numbers (1,2,3,4) -> (1 + 4 + 9 + 16) = 30
The sum of the first five even numbers (2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10) = 30
The sum of the numbers from four to eight (4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8) also = 30
Dodecahedrons and icosahedrons both have 30 edges.
The best known feature of Stonehenge is the Sarsen Circle which was built as 30 upright stones with 30 lintel stones on top of them. Only 16 remain standing today. (taken from http://richardphillips.org.uk/number/Num30.htm)
But beyond silly math and mystical druids, thirty made me clean. And I have noticed something curious during the process. About once every six months I take a serious hiatus from major segments of my life. Perhaps it has to do with recharging mental batteries, perhaps it is linked to my now-in-the-past semesterly schedule. Come May, Come December, I am not to be found floating through the intertron, or out and about. But upon my reemergence into the world, nearly the first thing that happens is a good and thorough cleaning.
Stuffing clutter into upright clutter boxes, called closets by some, simultaneously brushes the webs and clutter and mites and moles from my mind. If it is possible to become re-prolific, then I may achieve such a state twice yearly. Certainly my writing output spikes after I take some time off, but I wish I did not have to knock off the rust of ages each time I do. Ah, but cleaning...
A very special person in my life right now is visiting for my very special weekend of suddenly aging a year. I find some fortunate synergy in that I already needed to clean, and now I must clean. No one wishes to visit a hibernating creature unless their motives are less than pure; so to visitors to my abode. But here is the curious bit, everything I learned about cleaning I learned from the cat in the hat. I move the spot around and about until everything is verging on the edge of tidy. Quite possibly, very near a state of clean. Certainly not acceptable to most, probably not to the special person set to arrive when the fog clears from her airport.
And so I find myself staring into my utensil drawer and everything snaps into place. My apartment is very nearly clean, my mind is almost free of tension and webs and clutter, my laundry is mostly folded. I look down at the drawer of aluminum silverware and the differences between myself and others unfold before me.
I have returned all of the utensils from my dishwasher to the proper drawer at the completion of their wash cycle.
If someone were to go to the drawer for a spoon, they would find one. This is a certainty, because I have placed the clean spoons in the utensil drawer for that is where they go so that people who need slightly curved digging implements for their food stuffs will not be at loss. However. If you look closely at the contents of the drawer, you will find that the unsharp knives are vaguely on the left, the twists and tines of forks are mostly on the right, and spoons of every shape and size are pretty much center front. But not really. That is to say, probably. If you looked left for a knife, right for a fork, and center front for a spoon you would probably find one. But you could look right for a knife, left for a fork, and anywhere for a spoon and you might also come into great fortune (as far as kitchen missions go).
The probability of spoons occurring in any particular location within my utensil drawer is a reflection on how I clean and why I clean. If I go to a location in my apartment in search for a particular item, the existence of that item in that place cannot be discrete. Over there, somewhere yonder, thereabouts, these are all valuable descriptors. The reason my mind fills with clutter and clingy webs is because of the determinate values of minutia in my life. The water bottle is always here, that CD was here a minute ago, dammit where is my phone. When the stuff of my life exists in space and time as a function of probability, all of that nattering record keeping dissipates.
And so, the den is cleared, the rat warren of my mind has been sluiced, and the fog of determinate existence has shifted once more to probable states. My book begins in a few weeks, my time travels restart, the Shield is back on television, and I am happy once again. Thirty, who could have predicted such an upbeat time to be around.
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