Dirty Dishes

Got up this morning after a sever bout of flue and saw a kitchen full, full is not exactly the right word, overflowing, swarming perhaps is a better description, with every utensil, bowl, cup, measuring cup, plate, a few socks, not matched and a couple of car parts from the garage, honest they were not from me.

Still reeling with the effects of illness, starving and thirsty from not eating and overwhelmed by the mess I proceeded to ceremoniously move one dirty item at a time, wiping a little grunge off one just to see it fall and stick to another, and endless and fruitless effort it seemed.

After a few grueling minutes of disgusting incredulity I started to see some progress.  Opening up the dishwasher I discovered it was also full and not just full but slammed full with pots and pans, things my mother told me never to wash in the dishwasher.  Not one pan was rinsed and each was placed in such a manner as to take up the maximum amount of space possible for one item, leaving no room for the stack of dishes still in the sink.

I had a difficult decision to make, one I’m sure many have had to struggle with, a decision that would alter the very fabric of space time and adjust the very premise of what I now believed, now that is hyperbole.  Really all I had to do was decide to wash what was already in the dishwasher, going against my poor departed mother express wishes or remove those items, wash them by hand and replace all the dirty dishes back into the washer.  The problem, there was no room on the counter to put the pots and pans.  I would have to clean the counters first, making the pile in the sink even higher that it was already in order to make room for the exculpation of the pots and pans.

Keep in mind and have a little sympathy for my plight.  Its 7:30 in the morning, I only came down to get a quick drink of water to stay the relentless thirst and cotton mouth due to the effects of a Nyquil induced comma the night before.  All I wanted was a drink.  No cups, no saucers, not the kind of outer space, no measuring devises of any kind.  If I wanted a drink I would have to wash something.  But it wasn’t even that simple, the way the dishes were heaped in the sink I would have to dig deep in order to find something and I figured as long as my arms were waste deep (can arms be waste deep?) I might as well get started on the mess.

The real issue here is not the decision to clean or not clean it’s the thoughtless efforts of unnamed children that caused the mess when their poor father was on deaths door and their overworked mother was grading papers.  It was easier to put off what needed to be done, pilling on the debt of dishes that any future hope of a clean kitchen was impossible, without the great sacrifice of a few to remedy the situation.  The thought crossed my mind to drive to the kids’ school and pull them out so they could clean up their mess and then possibly they would begin to understand the concept of self-reliance, or at least how to clean up after themselves.

In the end I did what most parents do I stood with hands on hips and muttered the immortal words “Family, I am disappoint…” and what our government has done for generations, succumbed to the pressures of simply getting it done without holding those responsible, responsible.  No lessons will be learned, the consequences, all mine apparently as I’m still trying to remove the grease and grim from the hairs on my arm and under my nails.  The kids will come home to a clean kitchen totally unaware of the problem and will want a snack, lifting a bowl or cup from the cupboard and leaving it when done, discarded in some random place on the counter or in the sink for someone else to deal with.