Dishes

I fear that I am beginning to repeat myself. It is bound to happen I suppose, but the problem is I can’t remember if I am repeating myself or if I have just had this thought before. I spent about thirty years walking the streets delivering mail and for the most part I could slip my brain into neutral and do the job without conscious thought. Yes, you are right; I did misdeliver the mail more often than I should have and you would think that I might feel some remorse. Well, I really couldn’t give a shit and to all of those who think it is a big deal to have to walk to your neighbours and drop a letter off once every year, to them I say “Suck it up Princess!”

The point that I am trying to make is that I had a lot of time to think about pretty much everything and no one to talk to about it. That is where you come in. I do have a way to check the blogs, but it is painfully slow and I can’t believe that anyone reading this has a better memory than I have. If you happen to notice that I am repeating myself, I would appreciate it if you would keep that information to yourself. No one likes a smart ass!

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I have always liked washing dishes. In fact, I have been known to take them out of the dishwasher and do them by hand. I think of it as a kind of active meditation. You immerse your hands in warm to hot water and your focus is entirely on cleaning that dish. There are several benefits to this form of meditation. Firstly and I suppose most importantly you get your dishes cleaned. Secondly, you have time to review the day and how you can improve tomorrow. I sometimes will listen to the radio and depending what I am listening to I might even learn something. When you have finished, you have a pile of clean dishes in the cupboard, an immaculate countertop and dry wrinkled hands. Okay, it isn’t perfect.

The reason that I mention this is that for the past few weeks I have had to do the dishes a lot more than usual and it has become borderline work. I found I was putting off doing the dishes later and later until I would do them just before bed or first thing in the morning. I didn’t always do the dishes as a way to find Nirvana; in fact I didn’t always do the dishes. My mom did the dishes when I was young and for a time paper plates seemed like the best idea that mankind had come up with. Imagine, you could eat without having to do anything except toss the plates into the incinerator! Just about this time I came up with the idea of a spray on coating that could be peeled off at the end of the meal leaving the dishes sparkling clean. It probably would have been highly toxic, but those were the days when four out of five doctors preferred Marlboro plain.

I came into my own, dish wise, when I started to go to Louise’s family get togethers and volunteered for dish duty. It would help get me out of those uncomfortable discussions with the family or those strange prairie card games where everyone cheated and I always lost. The downside of course was that they thought that I was peculiar at best and more than likely just “odd”. I am good with “odd” and I always knew where the glasses were kept.

Later on, it kept me from showing the kids just how bad dad was at math when they were doing their homework. “I’m doing the dishes; ask your mother what a polynomial is.” Now, I get to listen to the conversations and I am far enough away so that I can’t make a comment. Whenever I do, I tend to say the one thing that everyone agrees is just stupid.

Oh well, at least the dishes are clean.