Doing dishes makes me nauseous. I loathe doing them, so Callaghan does them. I gladly put them away. We never talk about who does what in the house… we just do what we don’t mind doing, and thankfully, there’s nothing to be done that we both dislike. It all evens out. So I unload the dishwasher, and he fills it and runs it. If he doesn’t do the dishes at night, he’ll do them in the morning.

Occasionally, though, the dishes don’t get done at night, and he can’t do them in the morning, either. Totally understandable. But then I’m in the house staring at the dirty dishes in the kitchen. And sometimes on those mornings, the wreckage in the sink is grosser than usual.

These were my thoughts after he left for work yesterday:

Gah. I’ll leave them there so he can do them when he gets home. But it would suck to come home from work and have to do dishes. I should do them. I’m his back-up. *** Maybe if I ignore them, they’ll do themselves. *** They’re still there. I can’t work knowing they’re there. They’re mocking me. I can’t write. I should just do them. It won’t kill me. *** Ugh, slime. How can he whistle and sing while doing this shit? Why do we eat so much olive oil? We should only eat fat-free things so if I have to do dishes, I won’t have to deal with oily water. Gag reflexes activated! *** What is wrong with you? You’ve seen and touched worse things than this. You and your weird hang-ups. Just get over it and do the damn dishes like a normal person. *** FINE. Flatware first, so they’re out of the way. UGH they’ve been soaking in oily water. Run hot water over hands until nerves are dead. Good thing he isn’t here, because he’d tell me to stop wasting water. But if he was here, I wouldn’t be doing dishes. I’m not turning off the hot water. He’ll never know. Ugh. I’m wasting water. I should turn it off. *** What the hell is this? Salad slime and cat food fork bits mixed into the oily water. Don’t throw up. Turn hot water back on, sterilize hands, turn water off. Deep breath. *** At least this is taking my mind off the elections. *** Glasses and mugs, okay, I can deal with glasses and mugs. Immensely satisfying, lining up glasses and mugs by shape and size. *** Aw yeah the top dish-rack is a work of art, all the drinkware lined up to military standards. BEASTMODE IN THE KITCHEN. *** %*#%^& I forgot to check the house for stray drinkware. Turn on water, scald hands, dry on paper towels, patrol house. Two glasses in the bedroom. One in the living room. That wasn’t too bad… I only have to do a little rearranging to fit them into my glorious dish-rack of perfection. DONE. Onto the bottom rack. *** Plates, fine. Bowls. There… there’s one. No, not there. Here. Why can’t I get this bowl to lean forward? Maybe here. No. Why. How does he do it?! Fine, stay face-down on the rack, bowl. I don’t care. *** But now there’s no room on that side for the other bowls. I’ll rearrange. There has to be a way, and I WILL FIND IT. *** Ugh, rearranging is making my fingers slimy again. HE OWES ME BIG TIME FOR THIS. *** I’d rather stick my head in the turtles’ bathtub Grandma and Grandpa kept in their backyard, where the turtles were happy with their slimy armored bodies. The turtles were cute. There are no turtles here. If there were, they would perish in this oily dish slime. *** There. Was. Crud. On. That. Plate. And. I. Just. Touched. It. *** Nothing fits in this dishwasher; we should just buy a new one. No, we should use paper plates and cups and plastic flatware all the time and order take-out so we never have to do dishes. But the environment. And health. And money. *** Why is this Goliath beer stein even in our house? It’s complicating my life taking up a whole quarter of the bottom rack. Oh yeah, we have it because I saw it at the Goodwill on half-off Saturday and I thought it was a great find so I bought it for Callaghan because he’s been wanting one like it and he loves it. I’m the best wife for having found this beer stein. I am the worst wife for my lack of dishwasher-loading aptitude. But I’m SO GREAT at unloading the dishwasher.

And I do laundry like a boss, every step of it, and I enjoy it. He hates doing laundry as much as I hate doing dishes. See? It all evens out.