Cleaning 4: What Does It Mean To “Wash The Dishes”?

When I was about twenty-four, I moved into a large house in Seattle with six other residents. It was not the first time in my life that I’d lived somewhere without an automatic dishwasher. But it was the first time when several conditions were met at the same time:

• I was cooking for myself frequently, and so often generated dirty dishes.
• Nobody else was there to do the dishes for me.
• There was no dishwasher.

My six housemates were often annoyed with me because I would leave dirty dishes in the sink for long periods of time before washing them. I didn’t want to be a difficult housemate, and yet I dreaded washing dishes so much, and I was putting so much energy into cooking, that after I ate, I didn’t want to ruin the experience with cleaning.

It almost seemed that, by cleaning up and putting away all the plates, cups, spatulas, pans, and spoons that I’d just soiled, I was somehow saying that to make the mess in the first place had been wrong. And I didn’t want to feel like it was wrong. I had cooked very seldom growing up, or even in college, and I was proud of myself for finally forging ahead in the difficult but righteous path of preparing my own meals. Why, after a successful sortie, must I be sent to the scullery, as if to atone for sins?

One day, I was in the kitchen, talking to Mel, the fellow housemate with whom I got along with the best. My dishes were in the sink, and we both knew it, so out of respect for her, I started to wash them while we talked.

Suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, she stopped speaking, and stared at my hands. I looked. I was holding a soapy bowl. I looked back at her.

“I know why you hate doing the dishes so much,” she said.
“Why?” I asked, truly wanting to know.
“Because it takes you five minutes to wash one fucking bowl,” she said. Read the rest of this entry »