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Entropy and the empty nest |
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Entropy and the empty nest
by Gina Hamilton
Coastal Journal editor
Down at Turning Tide Cottage, we are experiencing a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics. Part of the reason for this is that neither Chris nor I have the energy necessary to put into the system to combat it. But part of it isn’t our fault, and we will not take the blame.
Entropy is defined as a tendency toward disorder, and disorder is what we seem to be dealing with.
I thought, after our son and heir left for California, with the
corresponding loss of the Boys in the Back Room, there would be a
period of stasis. We would have little, if any, cleaning to do because
neither Chris nor I is the messy type (hah).
Turns out, the accelerating tendency toward disorder had very little to
do with said son and heir. We thought for a bit that the Boys would
come around to see us more frequently than they do, but they can’t
really be blamed, either. We can’t really blame the zoo, either,
although they play their parts in the process. Even Chris and I can’t
really be blamed.
Turns out, there’s really nothing we can do about it ... it’s a law of
the universe, and we might as well simply expect and accept a form of
heat death sooner or later.
Oddly enough, when the house was relatively crowded, there was less
entropy than there is now. Food got eaten rather than going to mold in
the refrigerator. (We still haven’t figured out the knack of buying
enough food for two, rather than the hordes that lived here ... or
spent a lot of time here anyway ... when our son and heir was at home.)
Garbage and recycling and kitchen waste got dealt with more promptly
than it does now ... it had to, because the cans would fill up. Floors
got mopped when the Boys would troop in after a particularly wet day at
the disc golf links. Mail got sorted and put away if we wanted to see
it again in the foreseeable future.
Now, we know perfectly well that the only way to combat entropy is to
increase the amount of energy entering the system. The energy must also
be efficient in order to be effective.
So far, we haven’t been able to summon up this sort of energy. By the
time we get home at the end of the day, we’ve barely enough energy to
take Rudie the Dog to the park and make dinner. And cleaning up after
dinner? We’ll do that in the morning if we have time before we go to
work.
Clearly, what Chris and I need is a wife.
Unfortunately, that’s a legal distinction that is frowned upon in
western societies. But it would solve a multitude of problems. A wife
could keep the house tidy by using her efficient energy to keep entropy
at bay, and what a treat it would be to have dinner waiting and hot
when we got home! And a dog already walked and ready to settle in for
the evening! And a parrot who is quiet because he’s had all the
attention he craves in the afternoon! And cats who’ve already been fed
and are snoozing on the made beds and warming them up for bedtime!
Unfortunately, without a move to Dubai or something, a wife is probably
not in the cards. So once again, we will go over the budget and try to
find enough to pay a housekeeper once every other week to do the heavy
work, and then we’ll try to regain enough energy ... by any means
necessary ... to keep the daily entropic problems under some control.
And we’ll probably use some magazine-techniques to “get organized”.
And then heat death will come anyway, but we’ll be too tired to notice
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