Morning Kitchen Chores

Every morning we have to be dressed and out in the frigid cold by 6:55 to be ready for chores, except if you have farm chores (you have to be up even earlier). Luckily, I don’t have to do farm chores this week- I’m on kitchen chores. What that entails is getting to say hi every morning to the beautiful kitchen staff! In return, I get an exuberant “GOOD MORNING MILO” from Troy, and a little less loud (but still exuberant) “morning Milo” from Shane.

After the greetings, I get to work. I take out the food, put the serving utensils in the containers, bring out the drinks, etc… At the end of each meal, I clean up the serving areas, slop extra food, and recycle the recyclables. This would be a lot of work if I didn’t have someone to help me but thankfully, I got a wonderful partner. She covers for me and I cover for her when we have other stuff to do.

Through this chore, I’ve gotten to know the ways of the kitchen and the people that work in it. There is usually some music playing in the background, and occasionally Troy’s voice singing along. You sometimes even get to see his amazing dance moves. Shane shows me where things go and shares his stories of past semesters, like the time when two kids got ahold of two giant boxes of chocolate chips and finished them all by themselves in about a week. They now lock up and hide the chocolate chips. Luckily through my adventures in the kitchen I have been able to find a small stash of chocolate chips and HAVEN’T been taking a small snack occasionally.

Just being able to know where all the food and snacks are is pretty fun, and makes me feel a little powerful. That’s not the best part about kitchen chores though. That prize has to go to getting to know the kitchen staff. They are honestly the most helpful and nicest people. Just talking to them when I’m bored or helping prepare all our homemade food for meals is a blast. Sadly my kitchen chores are almost up now, but I’ve heard that I might be getting a present at the end of it all, so we’ll see. That present will be bittersweet – like the chocolate chips I definitely HAVEN’T been eating.

Milo Pishev, The Dalton School, New York, NY

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