Dirty Dishes: A Fight For Routine
Written by Riley Heath. Graphic by Riley Heath.
An obscene amount of dishware and cutlery stared back at me from the stainless steel sink that final week of fall quarter, protruding out the top of the tub and littering the surrounding counter of my kitchen. It was a carefully balanced mess that continued to grow, like a virus or a mold, or my mother’s unhealthy collection of gnomes that clutter my childhood home each Christmas season. I need to stop doing this; I thought it to myself when I placed each dish there, and again when I finally reached for the stale sponge and turned the water on.
I heard on a self-help podcast once that you should save your dishes till the end of the day, just before you go to bed, to ensure that your most productive energy goes towards the things that matter most. Somehow, battling the greasy bastards after returning home from work or school, for example, was supposed to heal my pitiful lack of motivation. I tried it, but countless grimy stacks in my kitchen and many weeks of me promptly faceplanting in bed before thinking twice about my silverware said otherwise. Untouched and unwashed, they begged to be rinsed of day-old food, and this podcaster’s advice.
On my final night before flying home for winter break, I placed a travel coffee cup I’d had with me all day on top of the stack, because what’s one more precariously balanced, neglected item? Two, three, thirteen — the dishes and days blurred together during my final exams, anyway. I turned off the light and walked down the hallway toward my bedroom. I might not have done my dishes, but I turned the corner to a perfectly-made bed — a sight quite like a dribbling, kid’s water gun against a forest fire, but it felt important at the time. I changed into pajamas.
As my toothbrush slid over the crevasses around my teeth, I thought about the coffee mug, and of the dish I used that morning, the pot I used to meal prep, the bowl that once held eggs before a morning run. I thought of the glass, poke-a-dotted cup my best friend used almost an entire week ago as I hid my legs under the covers of my bed, how it was tucked away in the corner of the sink under a mountain of filth and crumbs like my feet under the duvet. It’s not like they would be broken and ruined when I got to them, I thought to myself, recalling how I’d rinsed each dish individually in a little water before abandoning them, like it would save them from the wait I was subjecting them to. I closed my eyes and had nightmares about my blue and white striped dishes turning strawberry-jelly red.
Maybe this podcaster’s advice should have come with a warning, an all-caps, boldened subheader below the play button of the episode that read: THIS ONLY WORKS FOR THOSE WHO DON’T TAKE DISHES SERIOUSLY. I, apparently, do.
One morning over winter break — after I’d finally come around to picking up the sponge so I could get on the plane home — I found myself thinking of that stack of dishware again as I loaded a coffee pod into my mom’s Keurig. ‘Twas the season of Ebenezer Scrooge and his past, present and future ghosts, and I found myself being haunted just the same, though, by crummy old plates, meal prep containers and spirits in the shape of teacups. Bah, humbug.
“I think I need to write a piece about dirty dishes,” I declared to my dad, who joined me with his morning Dr. Pepper at the island counter. I can’t imagine drinking that crap every single time I went to start my day, but he’s been doing it for as long as I can remember. It’s his thing, I guess. I picked up my mug and we sipped our beverages simultaneously.
He thought about it for a moment, then asked, “What for?”
“I’m having a dish-washing crisis,” I said.
My little sister populated, seemingly out of thin air, and joined our ring around the counter. She sipped out of a beige cup.
“Can’t relate,” she said. “I always do my dishes.” I gave her a look to say she wasn’t helping, and she turned her chin up proudly like she’d won a war.
I told them about the podcast and the rut it put me in, how I couldn’t stop thinking about my stupid dishware, and how this one silly thing seemed to throw off the rest of my life.
My mom, cupping her favorite bright orange mug near her lips, joined our island circle.
“Finally, someone gets me,” she said. “That podcaster is right. It’s really not that deep.”
“But it is!” my sister, my dad and I all exclaimed at the same time.
My mom threw her hands up, surrendering, and left the counter to pet the dog. He was chewing on a toy: a green-hatted gnome.
“Always do your dishes,” my dad said. He sipped his Dr. Pepper like it was a bougie coffee — a matcha or some herbal tea maybe — like a true academic. “That podcaster is an idiot. Idiot podcaster,” he said finally. “What a terrible habit to preach.”
When I walked over to the sink, I placed the mug down in the tub and paused. I could not believe I was here again; it felt like I was always here, hips pressed against the counter surrounding the sink, preparing to battle my arch nemesis for yet another day. My mom walked behind me, placing her used mug down next to mine, and said “thanks” cheerfully like it was a favor given to me rather than a hefty burden. My sister waited behind me creating a metaphorical line for the sink that I couldn’t seem to ever walk away from.
I felt her eyes watching me as I morally deteriorated over this teal, ski-mountain themed coffee mug. On the TV across the room, Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” I rolled up my sleeves, squirted Dawn on the sponge, and grabbed the charity-case orange mug first. I suppose I will honor dishes in my heart, and try to do them all the year, Mr. Scrooge. I offered to do my sister’s mug, too, but she wanted to clean hers herself.
New Years came and went, and I got several jokes made about the underlined, all-caps, first edition to my resolution list: DO YOUR DISHES! I know in my heart it’s far more significant than the literal meaning. This is my watered lawn; this is my folded laundry.
The only time I’ve broken this promise to myself thus far — granted, we’re not even through January yet — was when my friend had a car emergency. I ran out of the house, dishes left like skeletons at the bottom of my sink, to rescue her from a flat tire and dead battery.
Once I knew she was safe, I announced, “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”
“Yes of course, you have lots of work to do before school starts,” she said. “Totally get it.”
“I actually just really need to get home and do my dishes.”
“What?”
A new routine is a habit that requires upkeep, one that can clearly be positive or detrimental, but more than anything, it’s a promise to yourself. I, for example, have decided that dishes are a priority in my life. I often hear the phrase “the call is coming from in the house” when referencing the need to make a life change, but mine came to me in visuals; my friend’s dead tire reminded me of my abandoned plate, and her jumper cables of filthy tongs and utensils. So yes, I abandoned my friend to go back to my house and wash my dishes when her dead car began to remind me of my sink, because apparently, it is in fact that deep. I have to do my dishes.
