Life's Lessons

If one person cooks, the other one does the dishes -- that’s the rule in my house.  Or at least, that’s what we agreed upon in the beginning.  Now Mr. Hyde complains that the dishes sit in the sink all night, and he ends up doing them in the morning because he’s sick of looking at them.

Tired of hearing the complaints, I’ve often just washed the dishes as I cook to avoid them even getting into the sink but last night I was rushing to get dinner around so I just put the pans in the sink to soak.  Well, this morning rolls around and all the dishes are still sitting in the sink.

So I roll up my sleeves and start washing them up and then it dawns on me. He’s forgotten all about the rule and that’s why he gets upset with dishes sitting in the sink. He thinks I’m supposed to be cooking every meal AND doing the dishes while I’m operating under the assumption that he’s going to wash them since I cooked the meal.  I get excited. I’ve been getting yelled at for the last year over a simple misunderstanding.  It’s just a matter of reminding him about the rule.

He comes in and I gently mention the dishes in the sink ready to point out the misunderstanding.   “Do you know why I do that?” he says, “I left them there on purpose so you could see what it’s like to find something not done when it’s expected to be done.”   WHAT??  Him not doing the dishes is some sort of life lesson?  Ok, my excitement over being able to fix a simple problem quickly evaporates.  

“Ok,”  I calmly say. “But don’t you remember the rule that if I cook, you wash the dishes?”