Washing dirty dishes is not my favourite activity, right up there with washing floors dusting corners or polishing the silverware.
But while washing a two- or three-day supply of used plates, silverware and pots and pans, one has time to reflect on several topics, especially if washing and drying dishes alone as Housemate undertakes other household or outdoor chores.
I don’t talk out loud to myself, at least I don’t if there’s any chance of being overheard and asked to identify to whom I am speaking. However, my thoughts on those occasions of scrubbing off previously enjoyed food are clear as a bell with clarity of memory at a high 99.9 per cent.
In my most recent trip into the kitchen sink, for some reason, I began holding a reunion in my mind relating to the items in the kitchen cupboards and the appliances currently in our inventory.
And I assessed blame to the individuals responsible for certain crimes in the kitchen.
For instance, I distinctly remember a relative who while searching for a coffee mug, dropped that mug on the corner of my much-loved stove, chipping away enamel on its corner. It was not a small chip, but one large enough that it upset me every time I saw it there. That stove was bequeathed to us upon our marriage after being used extensively and cared for diligently by my sister and her family for 25 years.
Despite the chip, we continued to use that stove for another 10 years until repair parts were no longer available. That longevity did nothing to erase my anger that a guest would be so careless in a home she was visiting. She did not visit again, perhaps knowing I was not pleased.
Later in my foray into dirty dishes, I dried a bread and butter plate and put it in place atop a matching dinner plate. Those plates were part of a set of dishes given to us as a wedding present close to 55 years ago. Those two plates are all that remain of the four-place setting.
I know the culprits in the demise of the other place settings. I confess my guilt for some of the breakage. But Housemate was a co-conspirator, probably not a willing one, and has to share some of the blame. Neither of us planned to break cups and saucers and plates but over the years things happen and therefore, there are fewer dishes to wash but enough remain for happy memories.
Because a mechanical dishwasher is not a fixture in our home, a drawer is filled with dish towels, some more ratty than others, but still having enough cloth to carefully dry a dish. Each time I dry with one of the towels, I examine the embroidery and think of my Mother who stitched the seven days of the week and some extras, likely thinking I’d be doing laundry on the traditional Mondays so there would be enough towels to carry over until the wash was dried. If she only knew how I avoid dirty dishes!
One of my 56-year-old plastic mixing bowls was in the sink on one particular morning and I had to check to see if the wounded plastic had broken through to the other side of the bowl. Someone in the house had one day set the plastic dish too close to a boiling kettle. Thus the melt scar. That same bowl has a split at the pouring lip but naturally, I won’t discard it. After all, I mixed my first cake in that bowl after I left home at the age of 18 to pursue my career. Of course, I think of it fondly each time it is in my hands.
Ditto for the squarish, pink tin cup tucked away with other mugs and cups. Housemate calls it one of my “heritage things” that I don’t use much but refuse to give away or discard.
That is my baby cup, the vessel from which I sipped and drank after being weaned from more baby-like beakers. There is a plate to match, and yes, it stays with me too.
Through all the dish-washing exercises, I also ramble in my mind to think of adventures in my life, people I’ve met and friends from past and present, which reminds me: It is my turn to write Sharon, my Grade 1-12 friend who has stayed in touch through many years.
If it hadn’t been for dirty dish thinking time I might have delayed my letter.
Joyce Walter can be reached at [email protected]
