Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Sometimes Mary Poppins isn't the best woman for the job

At 1:33pm today this was the state of my problem area:

As you can see, the clean dishes are of course in the dishwasher (and have been sitting there all morning long) and not in the cupboards, where they belong. There's also a glass (and by glass, I mean plastic cup) on top of the dishwasher. Tsk, tsk, tsk. At least it's not a pile of junk mail, right? Does it count as an improvement if the dirty dishes are neatly stacked outside of the sink? I thought not.
This is trickier than I envisioned. To quote an ABBA classic, I don't think I'm "finally facing my Waterloo" with this challenge. I will overcome vice no. 2, it's just not as simple as I thought it would be. With working out, I do it once for the day and then it's over and I can feel wonderful that I accomplished something. I like that kind of gratification. I'm noticing that this whole dish business requires me to be consistently vigilant. Apparently I'm not so great at giving something my constant attention. This is why I wouldn't make a good gardener, or ER doc, or babysitter. Seriously folks. Next time you might want to think about calling Nanny McPhee before you call Mary Poppins.

5 comments:

Angie said...

LOL, that's classic. Only you.

Erin Gong said...

my favorite dishes trick: if you find something in the dishwasher that isn't quite clean, just leave it for another cycle or two. works every time.

in my house the battle is with getting my spouse to do the dishes. i do dinner, he does dishes. except there are immediate consequences for not having dinner done each night, and no consequences for undone dishes, except me being angry.

my favorite was this morning, when said spouse promised to do last night's dishes before leaving today. he (mostly) finished, but then didn't have time to make a lunch and asked me oh so courteously if i would oblige him by making his sandwich.

Mary Poppins said...

dodge party--yes, i'm afraid it is only me who has this problem. why can't i get it together?

erin--looks your husband found a loop hole in your system.

amydear said...

Okay, I just found your blog. Hope that's okay. I'm laughing about your ongoing battle with the top of the dishwasher because I waged the same battle for 4 years. Just when I got the dang thing cleaned off, papers from school, mail, craft supplies, dishes, etc. were all piled on top of it. After a while I just gave up. Moving was the only solution. Good luck to you!

Mary Poppins said...

amydear--glad you found me. i'm even more encouraged to know that you, of all people, struggled with this as well.