Sharing the workload.
Everyone is brought up in a different way by their parents. Parents often try to teach children the necessities in life and show them responsibility. From an early age you are made to do your share of tidying up – doing the dishes, cooking tea, cleaning the house, gathering firewood. Each of the Mallrats would have had chores to do at home before the virus. So how has this carried over into their new world? And has it?
Lex and Zandra were never very big on cleaning. They were happy to leave their mess for someone else to clean up. This was often left for people like Amber, Trudy and Salene who would end up cleaning up after everyone. There was a particular day when Trudy had just finished cleaning the kitchen and making Brady some food and had gone off to do something else. Meanwhile Lex and Zandra caused complete havoc and messed up the kitchen making themselves something to eat. Trudy came back and was unimpressed to find all her hard work undone.
Amber had drawn up a roster for the Mallrats trying to implement some fairness into the cleaning routine. Some of them kept to the roster while others didn’t.
Ned is the sort of person that is happy for everyone to clean up after him. When he eats he is a pig and when he’s finished there is a mess. Alice tried to teach Ned a lesson by telling him that for every crumb he left he was going to get one bag of garbage dumped in his room. As disgusting as Ned is, he started eating the garbage just to spite AliceŠ.yuck.
How does eating affect the Mallrats?
Patsy and Paul would often gorge themselves on food because they were hungry but end up feeling very sick. They did this with the stash of chocolate they found too. Food was rationed but if anyone could see an opportunity for getting more, they usually took it. Salene also had problems with eating. Salene had a disorder called Bullimia. Salene would be hungry and she would eat lots and lots of food and then feel guilty about eating so much. She would then make herself sick. This is very unhealthy and you can become very sick.
Food is scarce in Tribeworld and vegetables are grown when they can be. These are often eaten at special occasions because they are not readily available. Tinned food on the other hand is in large supply mostly in the form of beans or spaghetti. This is the primary food that the Mallrats live on.
Very occasionally there is fresh meat but only when someone is willing to sacrifice an animal. The younger kids kept animals as pets and would have to keep them hidden from other tribes in case they were thought of as food.
Lex decided that for his honeymoon with Zandra that they should have a nice meal. This meant the sacrifice of Henrietta. Henrietta was Cloe and Patsy’s pet chicken.
Instead of being able to go down to the supermarket or local store for some food you have to really consider where your next meal is coming from.