William Marvel: Kitchen U

Somewhere in my house must still be the cartoon my mother clipped out of a popular magazine from about 1950 and tucked into my baby album. It depicts a man just coming home from work in the traditional gray business suit, wearing a fedora and carrying a briefcase. He stands in the open doorway of a kitchen that looks as though a tornado has just passed through. Cooking utensils clutter the counters and dishes fill the sink, while baby spoons and cups and rattles lie scattered about.

In the middle of the room stands an empty highchair, the tray of which is smeared and dripping. A bowl has landed upside-down on the floor, and the walls are generously splattered with gobs the same color as the spillage from the bowl. At the kitchen table, with her elbows planted between mounds of other culinary refuse and her hair clenched in the fists on either side of her head, sits a woman who explains the vacant highchair. “I gave him away,” reads the caption.