Dishes

In any house there is a certain level of dirty dishes in the sink, on the counter and sometimes left on the table. If one has a dishwasher the task is supposed to be relatively easy, rinse the dishes, put them in the dishwasher, add soap, and press the start button. In our house we had a nice dishwasher and plenty of hands to help with the dishes but it was never as easy as I just described. My Mom thought it would be wise to pair us up with another sibling to make the dishes easier for all of us and more fair. When it was our turn to do the dishes we would call which tasks we wanted. Unloading the clean dishes, clearing the table, putting the food away, clearing the counters, rinsing the dirty dishes, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, wiping the table, wiping the counters, and finally sweeping the floor. I put them all out there because we could make doing the dishes the most complicated and time consuming projects ever invented. I was paired with my younger brother. My older sister was paired with my younger younger brother. The other siblings in the house were deemed too young to participate in this torture. Younger brother and I would start soon after everyone had left the dining room. This would be followed by yelling at other siblings who had left their dishes on the table. If they did not come back to clear their dishes we would yell at Mom to make them come back. Sometimes she would make them come back and other times Mom would yell back and say that we should just clear it instead of yelling. This would easily help us stall the actual work by five minutes. Then came the race. If I could get to the dishwasher first I could unload it. This was far easier than clearing the table because if you cleared the table then you almost always had to wipe the table. The table was huge. It had to be to seat seven then eight all the way up to eleven. I think the table groaned with the weight that we placed on it. The chairs were a rag tag fair of various sizes and heights and were also in various states of repair. Missing slats in the backs or wobbly legs made sitting at the table quite an adventure. If younger brother was ahead of me on the race to the dishwasher I would tackle him. Easy as that except that would then turn into a wrestling match. In my house we never threw punches. We just wrestled. On the ground we would roll back and forth blocking arms and legs from moving and using our weight for advantage. Mom would yell at us to stop all the racket and get back to work. The first yell never worked. The second might have pushed us a little. The third was usually accompanied by a visit. We would stop until she went around the corner again. Now twenty or thirty minutes had gone by and the dishes were no closer to being done. When one of us were hurt enough to start crying the wrestling stopped, usually with another threat from Mom. Back to work we went on those dishes. Going to the dishwasher to empty while younger brother cleared the table and put the food away, I quickly put everything in its place. Younger brother would yell for Mom about what container to use for the leftovers. I would clear the counters and then we would eventually end up at the sink. Now one would stand next to the sink and the other would stand next to the dishwasher. A quick rinse and the dishes went into the dishwasher. The one by the dishwasher was the judge and jury. If I thought the dish still too dirty or food too stuck on for the dishwasher I sent it back. This again caused much arguing and lamentations. Fifty minutes after dinner the dishes were mostly done. If there was a big pot used that inevitably ended up with soap and hot water to soak. With the dishes completed and the counters and tables wiped sweeping was the last task. Usually this meant both of us would leave the kitchen and report to Mom, DONE. She would ask us about wiping the tables, check. She would ask about wiping the counters, check. She would ask about the tray on the high chair...not checked. See we always tried to avoid that. It was the dirtiest thing in the entire kitchen. I left it off the initial list on purpose hoping even now to forget that awful mess. My younger brother and I would hang our heads and say no. We would walk back to the kitchen and clean the tray and wipe down the high chair. Now the easiest way to clean this tray was to use the spray hose that most kitchen sinks have. We would pull this hose out and start our task. The water bounced everywhere. Occasionally the water would accidentally get on my younger brother. I never figured out how he could get so wet. Anyway the tray and the high chair clean we would report back to Mom. Checklist continues until the did you sweep the floor. This is where speaking the fastest is best, That was his job! It never worked. We both went back in again one would sweep while the other would hold the dustpan. We put that in the garbage and returned. Dad got in a final question, Did you take out the trash? We of course hadn't and one of us had to go back. Dishes finally done after an hour and a half. Now for desert...