The thing about the soot (and that is the thing that there is a thing about)… the thing about the soot is that it gets everywhere. And I don’t mean “everywhere” in the same sense that most generalizations are used like, “Oh, that happens to me all the time.” Really? All the time? Of course not. Or, “I was heading that way forever!” Forever you say! That’s incredible, because it seems like I’m talking to you now, and the definition of forever kind of suggests that that shouldn’t be possible.

And the like.

We all do it, it ain’t no thing… but that is precisely the reason that it’s so important for me to clarify that when I say the soot gets everywhere, I mean literally and not figuratively everywhere.

It gets on all the walls and ceilings. It gets inside closets. It gets on shirts sandwiched between other shirts inside closed drawers in other rooms under blankets. It gets in the little grooves on your toothpaste cap.

It. Gets. Everywhere.

And, what’s worse, it’s incredibly voracious. I brought my shampoo bottle over to my friends’ house while they’re letting me stay with them. This is effectively soap surrounded loosely by material. This is the definition of clean. This is also the dirtiest thing I have in the shower. I have had this shampoo bottle in the shower with me for the last 4 days. During those 4 days I have taken at least 2 showers a day as I come back to my temporary home covered in soot and the smell of burning everything after a long day of laughing at myself and situation and saying goodbye to my once valuable belongings. In that time, I have washed, scrubbed, and generally cleaned that shampoo bottle every time I get the chance, and it is STILL coated in soot. It’ slightly better after 4 days in the shower, sure, but the grime still remains.

And that should really tell you a little something about the kind of soot we’re dealing with here, peopple.