My Husband Does The Dishes Wrong & Everyone Should Be More Like Me
Our current culture’s problem, summed up
Tell me why I am standing in the kitchen in my PJs, stock-still, teeth clenched, watching my husband put away the lids to our tupperwares and glass storage containers while I bite a hole in my tongue.
That’s not how they go, I’m thinking. Why is he putting them that way. Don’t say anything. Just let it go. It’s not that big of a deal. He’s helping. We love that he’s helping. This is good. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Who cares that that’s the wrong wa— “Thesmalleronesgoatthefront,” I blurt out like it’s one word.
He looks up with a smirking face and wide eyes.
“I mean, I guess it depends on what your definition of ‘front’ is…” I continue, trying to patch over my completely unnecessary “correction.” For me, or for him? I’m not sure.
“I’m putting all the clear ones here and the colored ones there,” Michael says in the tone of a kindergartner explaining how they’re sorting their legos. Innocent. Obvious. Factual. Light.
I’m silent because… it actually makes sense. And also, it doesn’t really hurt anything to sort them a different way. I just never thought of it like that. My brain always sorted the lids by size. So when it saw them being sorted differently, it panicked.
So easily triggered, that brain of mine.
But my husband also does a lot of things wrong.
For instance, he won’t just dump the whole basket of laundry in the washer, even though it was his idea to get the larger capacity washer in the first place, and even though our clothes will definitely fit since it’s just the two of us, and even though we don’t sort anything anyway. He just does it wrong.
Also, he hangs his wet towel on a hook and not the shower rod! How will it dry properly all bunched up like that? Wrong!!
When he loads the dishwasher, he puts the knives blades-up! The horror.
When he cooks, he freely dumps olive oil in the pan rather than using the spray olive oil we have that is specifically for greasing pans. Duh! Wrong again.
If he puts leftovers away in the fridge, there’s no rhyme or reason. Just containers shoved wherever they will fit. And don’t get me started on how much bathroom cleaner he sprays in the sink when it’s his turn to clean it. Just.. so wrong.
If only he could do everything my way. Like me. 🙄😤
If only everyone could do everything in a way that fits our way, right?
Hello World of 7 Billion People And Growing, Hi there, Country of Millions of Different Families and Experiences and Religions and Pasts and Traumas and Beliefs 👋🏻— could you guys just, like, all do things my way?
Could you just, like, act like the gender we decided arbitrarily that your body parts say you should act like? Could you just, fall in line like the rest of us, please? Just, go to college, get a job (a real job. a normal job.), get married (to someone of the opposite sex, obviously), build a white picket fence around your golden retriever’s yard and huff it to the carpool line and the cubicle for the next 30 years please? Could you just, silence your culture and your religious beliefs and your race and the things your mama taught you that her mama taught her? Could you forget about your values and morals and the way you were brought up? Because damnit if it ain’t cramping my style and making me uncomfortable with the things I believe.
Listen, marriage isn’t hard because we sort the Tupperware lids differently. It’s hard because I think the way I sort them is right.
Life with other humans isn’t hard because we’re different. It’s hard because we keep trying to be the same.
So easily triggered, those brains of ours.