Son of A Dish

I'd like to preface this post by saying that the people who took me in are kind and decent, providing food and shelter, and generally leaving me alone even though I am awake at weird hours and I occasionally try to take over small towns and build forts. Without them there is absolutely no way I'd be writing this website today. That being said.....

My family is slowly driving me insane when it comes to the dishes.

First off, I was only given the job because certain other family members who shall remain nameless did what can at best be described as a sub-standard job. I admit I was quite jealous that my proficiency when it came to loading and unloading of the dishes only earned me the task in perpetuity. I strove to be bad and have the chore removed, but Alas: Drat my integrity!

So, I do the dishes, and all I ask is that if the dishwasher is empty (as it is virtually every morning), you load your own dishes all day when you use them.

You'd think this was pulling teeth.

[To me, this is right up there with refilling the ice trays. For the life of me I cannot figure out how people who are all able to hold down jobs and get places and generally transverse gravity cannot refill an ice tray after use. It takes at most ten extra seconds; everyone in the universe has that kind of time. But I digress.]

At the beginning, when I first took over the dishes, folks had a reasonable excuse: they were so used to the dishwasher being full of clean dishes that they could never load them. I understand. But I STROVE to have that dishwasher loaded, washed and unloaded before morning, so it was empty all day. (This is a bigger task than you can believe. Sometimes it takes me three cycles a day to get them all washed.)

Still, no matter how hard I worked, I'd come upstairs to find the dishes continued to be piled messily in the kitchen--often without even soap and water in them so the pots didn't get hardened gunk in the bottoms.

I've come to the point where I am no longer as gung-ho diligent about making sure every load is washed and put away by morning. What's the point when the dishes will pile up regardless?

Sometimes members of my family try to "help" by running the dishwasher for me. However, they use "Air Dry" instead of Heat. It doesn't use that much energy, and as the guy doing them, I don't have that kind of time to dry every dish.

But now the straw breaks. Relatives are staying with us, and it's a joy to see them.

HOWEVER,

They too are "helping" by doing some of the dishes. Am I grateful? With all the extra people in the house there are many more dishes, so you'd think I'd be happy with the assistance.

UH, NO.

Half the time the friendly relatives wash the dishes by hand. This great except for the tiny insignificant detail that every single dish is still unclean, which means I have to go through them all and wash them again in the dishwasher (which affects my load plan, as I usually gauge how many times I will have to do it each night). This presumes the dishes aren't actually put away, which means dirty dishes for the next day.

Speaking of putting the dishes away, another "helpful" thing they do is unload the dishes for me. This has led to me being unable to find any dishes! We have a smallish kitchen, so you'd think there would only be a few spots the dishes could be.

YOU'D THINK WRONG.

I kid you not: The other day the spoons just disappeared. Every single one of them. Where could the spoons even go? We have a silverware drawer. Empty. The other drawers don't have them. What is going on?

ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

I suppose it could be worse. I could be back like I was three years ago, when there wasn't any food to mess up the plates. There was a time I'd jump for joy at the opportunity to clean a plate.

But still....I may be insane, and sooner than you'd think.