Frumpy Mom: Who does the dishes in your house?

When I thought of the joys and challenges of having children, I expected lots of hugs, smiling messy faces and maybe an occasional annoyance to momentarily mar my bliss.

What I got instead was: Dishes. Lots and lots of dishes to wash.

If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll admit that when I lived by myself, sometimes I used paper plates and plastic utensils so there was nothing left to wash up. I know, it’s not ecologically sound. I was personally contributing to global warming and the filling up of landfills.

This is why I don’t want you to tell anyone. Thanks. But after I adopted a 3-year-old and 5-year-old on the same day, it only took nanoseconds for me to realize that I couldn’t feed them on paper plates forever. And forever after, my life became tied to an endless sink filled with dishes.

People have many fantasies about what they’d do if they won the lottery. My son wants a Ferrari, although realistically I’m pretty sure his mother would need a crane to get her out of the passenger seat. Hmm. Maybe that’s why he wants it.

I, however, have only one fantasy — after the one where I get to travel everywhere all the time in First Class. I want someone to come to my house and do all my dishes.

I do have a wonderful housekeeper I love who comes and helps me every Friday. I would rather sell one of my kids than lose her. But she only washes the dishes on Fridays.

Some of you are sneering and thinking, “Why doesn’t this broad just get a dishwasher?”

Well, I actually have a dishwasher, but here’s the problem: When you use it, you actually have to do the dishes twice. Once when you load it, and then later, when you have to unload it. After you load the dishwasher and wipe down the counters, you have that momentary glow of satisfaction, right? Your kitchen looks respectable and all is right with the world.

But what happens only a short time later? The dishes are clean, but now what? The new pile of dirty dishes has to go into the sink, because you haven’t unloaded the clean ones yet.

So you’ve turned one aggravating chore — washing the dishes — into two separate ones.

I lived with my best friend for three years, until she deserted me for the man who became her husband. She’s an exceptionally easygoing person, so the only argument I can ever remember having with her while we lived together was over … you guessed it …. unloading the dishwasher.

I’m a big believer in giving kids household chores as soon as they’re able to handle them, so naturally doing the dishes quickly became a family favorite. Well, OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration.

If you’ve ever had kids, you know that it’s actually more work to make your kids do the chores than if you simply did them yourself. I used to pull this sheep dip on my mom constantly. “Mom, how do you sweep the floor? Where do these plates go when I unload them? Can I wait until after I achieve puberty?”

Mom was a neat freak with very little patience, so after very little complaining or idiotic questions, she would simply take over and do the chore I’d been assigned. I got really quite good at this.

So when I had my own children, there was no way they were getting away with this scam. I might have to nag, hound and pester them, but as God is my witness, they were not getting away with cutting the dishwashing chores.

My son, Cheetah Boy, is now a young adult. He still lives with me, and he still hates dealing with dishes. I’ll say, “Please load the dishwasher,” and he’ll say, “Sure, mom, right after I finish this vitally important thing I’m doing.”

The actual definition of that sentence is, “I’ll do it Mom. When pigs fly.” So I insist he do it “now” and he snaps back and then we’re having a spat and I tell him if he can’t help out around the house, he can move out, because I am not running a hotel.

I stomp into my room,  shut the door — and then he loads the dishwasher, exactly as I had just requested. Occasionally, he even wipes down the counter. I’m not exactly sure why we have to go through this little psychodrama every time. If you’re a shrink, perhaps you can explain it to me.

I do fondly remember the time that I heard the Rolling Stones playing in the kitchen, and pots and pans being bashed around. I thought maybe there was a burglar, but I went out and discovered Cheetah Boy voluntarily cleaning the kitchen, while listening to the Stones. Normally he listens to hip-hop that’s so vile it makes me cringe to even think about it.

Maybe he was taken over by aliens that day. But I wish they’d come back.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about the dishes in the sink right now. Should I do them? Or start the drama rolling?