The Messy Art of Maintenance

"Maintenance is all around", the lesser known cover of The Troggs' classic "Love is all around" by the Community Service Choir of Great Britain, contains probably more truth than the song upon which it was originally based.

Maintenance is all around, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Without maintenance we would descend into sheer chaos far beyond the likes that How Clean Is Your House can portray - dust bunnies the size of buildings would bound around the land terrorising citizens, pavements would be hidden under layers of chewing gum and Microsoft Windows would take a week to boot into a functioning state. Remember to defragment your hard drive regularly, kids! And registry cleaners are your friend.

In fact, I'll bet if you recount most of your day today you'll find that maintenance took up the majority of your time. For myself, I: showered, shaved, brushed my teeth, tidied my room (the mother's ol' favourite), washed the dishes, restrung my guitar, cleaned my clothes, ironed clothes, updated my computer (maintenance!) and maintained my girlfriends happiness (I hope!) by phoning her. Hell, even my evening job as a bartender and waiter revolves around maintaining the quenched thirst of customers, maintaining cleanliness of glasses, utensils and maintaining stock in the fridges. Even right now, I am maintaining a blog! Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. But it's pretty necessary, right?

The human race seems to be in some world wide game of Jenga. Everyone tactfully plays in order to maintain the integrity of the tower. However... anyone that's played Jenga knows how much damn fun it is to see that tower crumble in some form or another. Whether it is the students in the flat who decide to fuck it and not put the bin out for the 50th time in a row - despite being hounded by the cleaners, or the ever popular procrastination during precious study hours - there is an element of fun or excitement to live life on the maintenance-free edge. But as we all know, the Jenga tower has to be built back up again inevitably.

I reckon that the world can survive the little slip here and there by the odd person so long as there is still a good number of Dust Bunny Defenders protecting Mother Earth at any given time. However if everyone were to lapse at once, the effects would be catastrophic (similar to the idea that if everyone in China jumped at the same time, the world would go out of orbit*) - the world would instantly descend into a dusty, hairy wasteland full of BO, bad dental hygiene, creased clothes, overgrown plants and we would all resemble members of Scandinavian Death Metal bands.

So kids, wreak havoc responsibly.

Jenga!

*which is not true, by the way.