Neurotic Dishwashing: A Tutorial

I can’t just wash a dish and let it be, because I am a special brand of crazy. 

It’s why I’d rather pick hay out of my husbands socks every day for the rest of my life than wash dishes.  Why I’d prefer to scrub the diarrhea out of my child’s underwear than wash dishes.  Why I’d rather pick up trash on the side of the highway than wash dishes. 

Well, that might actually be going a little far.  

So, people?  The dosage of my meds just isn’t high enough to battle a broken dishwasher, especially not for a whole damn week.  The planet, my family, and my sanity need me to have a dishwasher.

Here’s a little peek into my neurotic dish washing.  Welcome to my world.

First of all: don’t even think about using a germ infested, disgusting sponge: washable dishcloths or paper towels only.

To get started, the dirty dishes must be rinsed and wiped off with a paper towel before being stacked on the counter to the right of the sink in an orderly fashion.  Which means, front to back and top to bottom, with littlest items on top.  First bottles, then glasses, then cups, then bowls, plates, left-over containers, pots, pans, and finally, silver wear.

After everything has been rinsed, wiped and stacked, both sinks and the counter to the left of the sink must be scrubbed until they sparkle and shine.

Next, plug up the right hand sink and fill it with scalding hot water.  If you’ve got kids, you’ve probably turned your water heater down, so you’ll have to remember to crank that baby up about an hour before you do the dishes.  Don’t forget to turn it back down later!

Pump in two squirts of dish soap, and start dropping in the baby’s toddler’s bottles. 

While they soak for exactly five minutes, put a large towel on the left hand counter.

Thoroughly scrub the baby’s toddler’s bottles – don’t forget the bottle brush!  Drop them into the sparkling clean left hand sink. 

Put the next set of items into the soapy water to soak.  You guessed it, for exactly five minutes.

Rinse each of the baby’s toddler’s bottles with scalding hot water exactly five times.  Hang them to try on the bottle drying rack.

Continue through the rest of the groups of dishes, replacing paper towel/washable dishcloth and the lukewarm, suds-less dishwater with fresh, scalding hot, soapy water after every 2-3 groups, depending on how large they are.

Add extra hot water and a dash of earth-friendly bleach to the last group, silver wear, and let them soak for a full ten minutes before washing.

When finished, scrub the counter to the right of the sink until it sparkles and shines.  Wipe out the sinks.

Pour yourself a stiff drink and liberally apply moisturizer to your scaly, wrinkly, peeling, red hands while you let the dishes air dry for a few minutes.  Don’t let them sit too long, though, or some dust may land on them and you will consider them dirty.

Put your feet up, you deserve it!  And hey, pretty soon it’s time to make lunch! or dinner! or snack! and then you can start the whole process over again.

If you’re lucky, your husband will pick up on your crazy pretty quickly and, since he doesn’t do it right and you won’t let him help you,  he’ll offer to get a brand new dishwasher and install it himself that very day. 

He is so getting lucky later.  As if being married to you doesn’t make him lucky enough!