Kitchens and Causes
By Philip Johnston

Page 1 of 5

When you're practicing, if you can figure out exactly what is causing a problem, you are half way towards solving it. Sally Smart and Isabelle Inefficient discovered this the hard way – and they almost flooded Isabelle’s house in the process…

It all happened like this.

Isabelle is wandering around her house, half asleep and grumpy. Mornings are not her best time, but there was breakfast to be had and homework to be done before school.

So into the kitchen she goes and…splosh splosh. Splishety splush.

She stops and listens carefully.

Nothing.

So she shrugs her shoulders, and keeps going.

Splosh. Splush…

It’s only when she feels the water seeping into her slippers that she looks down…

“Eeeek!” she screams. The kitchen floor is covered in water, almost ankle deep.

Isabelle does not have a reputation for keeping a cool head in a crisis, but realises that she has to do something before the whole house fills up with water.

So she gets a mop and a bucket. And off she goes. Mop mop mop. Squeeze squeeze. Mop mop mop.

Isabelle has probably never worked this hard before. And after half an hour or so, the water is all gone.

Or is it? As Isabelle congratulates herself for a job well done, she sees water starting to appear on the floor again.

“Oh well” she sighs. “I will just have to mop harder.” And so she does. Mop mop mop mop. Squeeze squeeze. Mop mop mop mop.

Half an hour later, the water is all gone…but it is coming back again. Isabelle is growing alarmed now, and decides that she is obviously still not mopping hard enough. So she starts again – MOP MOP MOP MOP squeeze MOP MOP MOP MOP…

Three hours later, and Isabelle is all mopped out. She is too tired to move, and water is still appearing on the kitchen floor. Just as she starts hoping for scuba gear for her birthday, there is a knock at the door.

It is Sally Smart. Returning a music book that she borrowed a week ago.

“Hi Isabelle” she says “Just dropping in your….wow…what happened to your kitchen?…”

“Here” says Isabelle weakly “Take my mop – I can’t go on…”

But Sally shakes her head, and walks straight past the mop as she heads into the kitchen. Sixty seconds later, the water problem is fixed, and at no stage did she use a mop.

What? No mopping? Tell me how she did it!