Touche, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, Touche
One of my biggest pet peeves is a dirty kitchen. Not other people’s, mind you, but my own. That is not to say that I am the cleanest person in the world, but I tend to not let more that one meal’s dishes pile up, and I use all my super powers to prevent the dishes from ever wandering beyond the sink basin. The point of this is that I like to keep the kitchen counter clear and free of objects that do not belong on said counter top.
My wife, Miranda Kopfshmertzen, has a conflicting peeve, where she does not like to put large objects, like empty juice bottles, into our tiny under-the-sink trash bin as one bottle can almost max out the bin’s holding capacity, hence throw away one bottle and suddenly you have to take the trash out again. Her solution to this is to put the empty bottle on the counter top, albeit neatly, but still on the counter top.
Last night such an event happened. For reasons I can’t explain, after 5 years of living together, I suddenly had the courage to confront this situation. I had just cleaned up the kitchen, walked into the living room, decided to get a glass of water and when I returned to the kitchen, there it was – an empty Ocean Spray cranberry juice bottle, next to the sink…mocking me. Keep in mind, I was very diplomatic and polite about this. I did not just blurt out, “WOMAN! How many times I gots to be tellin’ you not to be puttin’ the damn trash on the kitchen counter?” On the contrary, I prefaced my request with a declaration of love, and then asked if she would not mind putting such items in the trash, acknowledging full well that this is rooted in my neurosis and conceding to take out the trash when it becomes full as a compromise.
My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, paused for a moment to determine if I was serious or just making a really bad joke. Realizing that I was indeed serious she calmly said, “Trash? You are lucky the empty bottles make it out of the refrigerator.”
I took a moment to reflect. My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, was absolutely right. Finding the empties in the fridge would make me audibly upset and probably cause me to go into a tizzy; whereas finding them on the kitchen counter only causes me mild annoyance. I thanked my wife for making the situation clear to me and went about my business.
The kitchen is a touchy subject in the House of Won Ton as well, only it is the cleanliness of the dishes before they go into the dishwasher that is the source of contention. Why must I wash the dish only to put it in the dishwasher? Is that not redundant, a waste of time, and (in our time of near-drought) a waste of precious LBC water?
I totally agree. Pre-washing the dishes is silly. (Sure you knock the big lumps into the garbage disposal first, but everything else if fair game.) EVERYBODY knows you just stick the ickies in the dishwasher in a semi-ordered fashion and turn that puppy to “Blam-O!”. On the rare occasion that an item is not cleaned properly, EVERYBODY knows that you leave the suspect item in the dishwasher for a second bout, all the while thanking The Maker for these Jetsons-like modern conveniences.
Well not EVERYBODY is from Minnesota and knows as much about the physics of food particles as SOME PEOPLE.
I also forgot to add that if said dirty item does not become clean after its second run through, then the dirty item then becomes trash.
What is your wife’s name again?
Dearest Nikki –
I think you know the answer to that one. And don’t you forget it!
Sincerely,
Lordleiter’s Wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen.