Hello again everyone! Today I am going to tell you about one of the most important things done on station everyday, a thing called GASH.

GASH is done every night after dinner and each person on station has to sign up for one night of the week to do it. That puts about five people GASHing every day. GASH is cleaning the kitchen, but there is much more to it than that.

The most important part of GASH is choosing the music. It is such a big thing that there are people burning CDs just to listen to at GASH. Only one person gets to choose the music, so it is hard to find one CD that all five people will like, but everyone makes do. When the music is turned on, everyone that is still eating dinner gets up and leaves the dining area so that the GASHers can get down to business.

GASHers have the responsibility to put all of the dinner leftovers away in the leftover refrigerator, a.k.a. The Debra Joe.

When all the food is put up, the pots and pans have to be washed and this can be quite a chore. Food for 36 people takes up several pots and pans. Depending on what was cooked for dinner that night, the pots can be soiled to differing degrees. Spaghetti pots can be cleaned rather easily, but rice pans take a lot of elbow greas -- a LOT of elbow grease. I had the unfortunate opportunity to find this out last week. After all the pots are cleaned, they have to be sanitized. This is done in our wonderful sanitizer, which is a machine that simply sprays the dishes with extremely hot water and then rinses them off. This will kill any germs left on the dishes.

All of the floors of the dining area, kitchen, and dishwashing area have to be swept and mopped as well. This is done as soon as the tables are wiped off and the chairs put up.

All of the salt, pepper, sugar, and napkin containers have to be refilled as well. Is it starting to sound like fun yet?

Then there is the dishwashing area, which is also where the sanitizer is. There is also the major garbage disposal, a.k.a. The Baby Grinder. I don’t know how it got its name, but it is a very powerful grinder. ALL of the food scraps from the night are put down this and ground to a pulp.

Then, there is the wiping down of all the counters and such. The sponges that are used for this are the last things to go through the sanitizer. The sanitizer is then cleaned up and GASH is complete other than putting the names of the next night’s GASHers on the dry erase board in the dining area. There is usually a witty phrase that precedes the names (e.g. Who passed the GASH?, ThanksGASHing, etc.), and since I lack wit, I never put the names up.

So, now you know about one of the vital things to keeping the station clean and running on a daily basis. Without GASH every day, the kitchen staff would have way too much work and wouldn’t have time to cook us the fantastic meals that they do have the time to cook for us.

Until next time, keep tuning in for updates and don’t forget to send questions.