Tuesday, December 7, 2021

My Next Goal Is To Make Them Mad Enough To Wash Their Own Dishes

Let the record show that Farmer H has done his own laundry since the early years of our marriage. All because he took offense to being told to put his dirty clothes in the hamper in the bathroom. He was an hourly worker back then, and wore jeans and t-shirts that got soiled with grease during his machine maintenance duties. When he came home, he'd undress for a bath, and leave those dirty clothes in a pile on the bedroom floor.

"If you expect me to wash your clothes, you'll need to put them in the hamper. I won't pick them up off the floor."

Well. Who could have known how strongly Farmer H would feel about this topic? Surely (heh, heh, I typed SURLY) not Mrs. HM. But as you might expect, it did not hurt my feelings at all for Farmer H to selfishly do his own laundry from then on.

The Pony does his own laundry since he's moved back home. Not that I offered to do it for him. I'm pretty sure he lives in fear that I will breach the sanctity of his room to look for clothes in need of laundering.

NOW... if I could just stir up something to make them want to wash their own dishes, I'd be a freakin' genius. Yesterday I did three sinks full of dishes. Yet I hadn't gone a day without doing dishes. It's not like I let them build up. There were just too many, in such odd shapes, to get washed and drained in the clean sink. I know you don't think Mrs. HM is going to DRY the dishes, too! They can evaporate while I take a load off my feet.

I had the Tupperware container from the Oreo Cake. And skillets from The Pony making himself chicken tacos. And the muffin pan from corn muffins to go with the pot of beans I made. I normally would have put the leftover beans in my Chinese Tupperware soup containers, but I did NOT feel like wrestling that big pot. Oh, then there were the bowls from bean-eating, and countless dippers and stirring spoons and spatulas.
 
The Pony will wipe out the skillets with a paper towel. Sometimes rinse them. And if he uses a plate, he will wash ONLY THAT PLATE. Which is more than Farmer H does. He only runs cold water on a plate, washing food particles down into the sink hole to clog the openings.

I had planned on doing a load of my laundry yesterday, but The Pony claimed the washer. So I put it off until today, only to discover that Farmer H came home early from the auction, and piled my stuff from the dryer in a clothes basket in the laundry room. I'm pretty sure some socks will be missing. That was a dirty trick! I went to town as he was coming up the driveway, my clothes just put in the dryer. And that dirty dog rushed in to start washing his tighty-whities. Meaning that my dryer clothes had no chance to wait for me to fold them when I got back.
 
The Lady of the Mansion expects better treatment...

4 comments:

River said...

I never leave my dishes to dry themselves. We have hard water here and evaporation leaves water marks on the dishes and glasses and I hate that. I rarely leave things in the dryer while I go out anywhere, unless the cycle has only just begun and I know I will be home when it finishes, so I can fold the still warm clothes before they get dryer creases. things like towels and underwear don't matter so much, but t-shirts get pulled out and hung right away.
Why would you have missing socks?

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
We have hard water, but the only thing I've seen water spots on are the used-only-at-holidays clear glass glasses. My dishes are white, so if they have spots, I don't see them. Nor do I notice any water marks on my Chinese Tupperware, or my copper-bottom pans.

The dryer is electric, so it's not at risk of bursting into flames from a clogged lint trap which I've read about but don't know if it's true. I don't mind if my underwear wrinkles. The socks won't. Farmer H is so careless that he's likely to drop a couple behind the clothes basket, or down by the mini freezer, or leave one on a shelf thingy that's inside the dryer drum, so that it gets stuck to HIS clothes. I don't like Farmer H moving my laundry.

Sioux Roslawski said...

If you can figure out a way to make them wash their dishes, you can then go on an international speaking tour--and your can charge a small fortune per person. We ALL want to know that secret.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Sioux,
So tempting... if I only knew that secret, it would be better than a blue dot on a MyPillow that when squeezed, dispenses OxyClean! I can't go on a speaking tour without a VALid product.