Spouse is a great guy. Among other features, he is the best roommate I’ve ever had. Love him and all that. But now that I’m spending more time managing the homestead, there’s a habit of his that’s making me just a little bit crazypants in my headholes.
When he uses a dish, he takes it to the sink, fills it with water and leaves it there full to the brim. Tea cup, salad plate, ice cream bowl, stew pot, roasting pan, baby bottle… whatever. He says he does this “so they can soak.” Which is patent bullshit and obfuscation. That glass had water in it, Spouse. How do you soak water off of a glass?
So, I’ve asked him nicely several times to please not leave me a sink full of dishes full of water.
And I come home to this.
I mean, seriously. It would be one thing to place a dish in the sink, wait for a few to accumulate, then do a big rinse and put them all in the dishwasher. No big. But if you’re going to fill them carefully and line them up? This is the maximum amount of effort one can expend while still not actually doing the dishes. This makes no sense to me.
To use the sink at all, I have to move these offerings, and always get my hands covered with dirty dishwater, so I have to wash my hands, so I may as well just fill the dishwasher… hey, wait a minute.
But I’m not sure Spouse even knows he’s doing it now. I think that I’ve now put a bug in his ear about “dishes full of water,” and subconsciously he’s trying to oblige. It’s all so tidy. That lineup on the right? Four baby bottles full of water, and four baby bottle caps also full of water. WTF?
How do I make it stop?
When I was in college, there was much discussion of the Dish Fairy. “What do you think? There’s some dish fairy that comes and cleans up after you?” Signs posted in the kitchens my friends shared with a cadre of house- and roommates were sometimes signed by this elusive dish fairy, and begged, cajoled or threatened the reader with bodily harm if they left dirty dishes in the sink.
I don’t think he’d respond well to notes from the dish fairy, so I’m going to try something I read about a couple of years ago. While researching a book about a school for animal trainers, this author learned a lot about positive reinforcement techniques. She tried them on her husband to get him to pick up his dirty socks, to great success. Her article in the New York Times was enormously popular (I remember it making quite a splash when it came out), and was the cause of much conversation around the office.
Wish me luck.


Stumble It!


So far, while trying to draft this blog post I have been interrupted three times. Just wanted to get that out there. Fast. Before, you know, I get interrupted.