Philolophsers_Among_the_Carrots

Philolophsers Among the Carrots

By Kay Haugaard

As I was cleaning the refrigerator the other day and thinking deep thoughts about Women’s Lib,I asked myself if it was still permissible to take pleasure in the profession of housewife and not to be a traitor to the cause. Am I really making use of my college education? What good did, “Introduction to Philosophy, IA” do me, for instance? Then I recalled Cocrates’ saying that, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and decided that may be it was time to examine mine.

As I stood eating apples, oranges and brown bananas and gazing into the depths of my refrigerator while considering college educations and housewives, I saw the manifestation of a great , metaphysical truth. “Like energy, matter simply descends in scale—from roast to stew to soup to cat food.” I muttered eruditely to the cat as I paused in my own eating long to pour a bit of soup into his bowl. “Where are the string beans of yesterday?”but of course, they are the vegetable soup of today. If I hadn’t been to college, I wouldn’t have seen an orange pit in the sink as I finished the salad (or did I learn that in high school?).

Then, as I eyed a bowl of cooked carrots speculatively, sizing them up for carrot cake or marinated vegetable salad and opting for the cake which I knew would be seconded by my husband and three sons, I followed the train of my thoughts which was chugging off into philosophical realms led by Archimedes who said, “Any object displaced in a fluid displaces its weight; an immersed object displaces its volume,” and with that principle to guide me I immersed the lumpy carrots in the milk called for in the recipe and found they made almost exactly the one cup called for. Muttering, along with Emerson, that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds… .” I dumped in a couple of spoonfuls of applesauce to make it come out right.

With the cake in the oven I went into the bathroom-laundry room carrying my new found illuminations about housewives and philosophy with me (Buddha had his Bo tree, I have my refrigerator) and there I faced the endless river of dirty tee shirts, sweat socks, pajamas and underwear, with a quote from Heraclitus. “You can’t step twice in the same river,”I assured myself as I pickup up a pair of jeans and emptied the pockets of bubble bum wrappers, pencils and pennies, and I saw about me the variety in unity and unity in variety spoken of by my aesthetics professor.

Then, having started the wash, and reflecting on the symbol of the lotus in Oriental philosophy which rises, pure and pristine from the mud and muck, I walked proud and untouched among the gym trunks and sweat shirts and out into the rest of the house to tidy it up. There I indulged in aggressive fantasies against my dear family as I picked up a necktie draped on a lamp, a pair of tennis shoes under the couch, a cache of peanut shells beneath a newspaper and, remembering William James’ comment that “Even a pig has a philosophy,” I wondered angrily what theirs was. After several days of such virtuous, domestic behavior scrubbing, ironing, cooking, and making yeast dough that blossoms and rises under my fingers like the miracle of life itself, I got up one morning and, with a wave of willfulness, remembered the philosophy of Rabelais’ renegade abbe, “Do as you will.” In my present state of mind I found this the quintessence of good sense and I walked out of the house and into the car, leaving the breakfast dishes on the table. When my husband came home he said, “This place is a mess!”

I smiled enigmatically as I continued to stir the chicken soup and quoted Alexander Pope, “All chaos is but order misunderstood,”then added with composure that I had purchased a new dress.

“A new dress! You just bought one last week!” he shouted in an unseemly manner. But, without becoming the least bit ruffled, I replied, in the words of Pascal, “Ah, but the heart has its reasons the mind knows not of,” and I moved off into the kitchen to cut up some cheese and fruit and put the bread on my new red dress, combed my hair and sprayed some “My Desire” cologne on it. My husband looked at me – eyes growing wide as an approving smile spread over his face. But the bread, with its tantalizing aroma was competing with me for his affections and the bread won the time being. I sat there smiling content amid my four men who were happily and heartily eating and I reflected that the philosophy of Boethius for me, at this time, seemed right and that “Whatever is, is good.”

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