Yes, I did the dishes

2007-11-13 13:02

David Moseley

About two years ago I bought my first couch that wasn't previously part of a student digs, and I followed that up a few weeks later with the purchase of an earnest-looking television cabinet. The first awkward steps towards domestic maturity, I surmised at the time.

It turned out to be a false dawn. It took only two days for the couch to become plastered with red wine stains and for the TV cabinet to become a dumping ground for the magazines that were clogging up the bathroom.

Last night, though, I took that final step. The real sign that you've stepped out of the carefree young-adult zone and into the full blown, world-weary "do everything with a sigh and hunched shoulders" realm of adulthood is when you begin to embrace household chores. And in particular, doing the one thing that has been the scourge of man, child and woman since soap made its frothy way into the world - the dishes.

They'd been sitting in the kitchen for a week. The little grease-stained, soap scum animal that had grown out of my left over bolognaise sauce was taunting me. "Wash me. Waaaash meee. I dare you".

My housemate and I have a simple arrangement. I cook. He eats. But the dishes are a test of resolve. Normally one of us will do them the next night. Begrudgingly, of course.

Sometimes, though, they just seem to accumulate. Slowly, assuredly, like Jacques Kallis stock-piling runs, until the task seems too overwhelming for the attack. Last night I cracked. I washed up and I was happy to do so. A sure sign of common sense replacing laissez-faire.

Family matters

My mom is not on this earth to tame the domestic front. Her cooking skills were erratic at best, her dedication to suburban bliss lacking. Every Christmas the family would finish a large lunch and the clean up rumblings would start. Naturally, because my gran had cooked she was exempt. My great-gran would have slyly slugged back one too many brandy and Cokes, greatly reducing her ability to stand up straight, let alone wash the priceless crystal.

The battle for dish-washing avoidance between my mom and brother, though, was always a highly anticipated highlight of the yuletide festivities. As the last piece of Christmas pudding was gulped down, as the final Christmas cracker was cracked and the last bon-bon scoffed, the two would stand up, stare each other down like two prize-fighters at the weigh-in, waiting for the other to flinch.

The goal was to get across the lounge, through the passage and into the bathroom first. My brother, never one to move with much dexterity in his youth, used to show remarkable fleet-footedness at this time of year. But he was no match for the old pro.

My mom, never shy to smash an elbow into Steven's eye in the race to the lavvy, would more often than night reach the target first. Once she was in, and the door locked, a mysterious stomach ailment would lay her down horribly low. Until, amazingly, the last teaspoon was back in the drawer.

My brother's plan B, though strikingly less subtle, was far more effective than the 20-yard toilet dash. He'd just drop the first piece of china on the floor that he could get his hands on, citing inherent clumsiness and the fumes of granny's brandy and Coke as debilitating factors.

A true legend in work avoidance, my brother.

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