Thursday, June 4, 2009

I can see why health care is such a mess

Jeff and I have something of a situation around the kitchen (how awesome is the word situation, by the way? I love it.). It's really unnecessarily complicated, but there you have it.

See, I refuse to empty the dishwasher. I refuse. It's the only way I can avoid feeling like a martyr. I can wash dishes, and actually find it kind of soothing. But to load and unload the dishwasher all day, I feel like a scullery maid. If he does some part of it then I feel like I have a PARTNER. Codependent! So at some point I just refused to do the emptying part, and much to my surprise, it worked, and Jeff always empties it.

But then, see, I also refuse to put plastic in the dishwasher. Which means we always have a pile of plastic stuff drying in the strainer beside the sink. Jeff does most of the dishes but has responded to my refusal to empty the dishwasher with a COPYCAT refusal to empty the sink-top strainer. A small protest because he thinks I am a little crazy with my no-plastic-in-dishwasher thing. (Which he calls COMPLICATED.)

So see? Now our incentives are all messed up. I have an incentive to get as much stuff as possible into the dishwasher (not plastic!), and he has an incentive to get as much stuff as possible into the sink thingy. Ceramics and cutlery and whatnot--things that could quite easily go into the dishwasher. That Jeff, he thinks I don't see his little GAME. So every day I empty the stupid sink thingy of dishwasher-approved items. And then when I do the dishes I load it up with knives full of peanut butter and such, knowing that once it's in the dishwasher, it is OUT OF MY HANDS. That someone else is going to DEAL with it. But what I think really ends up happening is that we both do way too many dishes, we plot and scheme way too much, and it's really not that EFFICIENT.

I had a thought that this is like our health care mess, sort of, the thing with the incentives being all off and otherwise normal people acting like idiots. But oh my heavens, this is boring, and I think I'm getting sick--who gets sick in JUNE, anyway? Bah. The end.

14 comments:

Susan said...

If you hadn't gotten all adult in the 4th paragraph, I would have suggested you add the clean plastics to the clean dishwasher for him to put away.
I should probably not seek a career in healthcare reform.

smalltownme said...

My husband refuses to touch the dishwasher at all. Load or unload, I've never seen him do it.

So what's wrong with plastic in the dishwasher? I put in almost everything, except the non-stick pans (because they say not to).

Angie McCullagh said...

Complicated. Ha! Funny.

Vanessa said...

I'm laughing because this is exactly the kind of thing the SO and I would do except it was with water glasses.

His response was to have another dishwasher installed and all dirty goes in one until its full, at which point it gets run, then as those dishes get dirty they go into the "clean" dishwasher across the kitchen and eventually we would have NO dishes to put away because they would constantly be traveling between the two dishwashers.

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

I can't stand keeping score and my husband hates it even more. It won't be long before you can just assign the job to Hugo and not worry about it!

Tania said...

I like the analogy, and I'm all over Vanessa's idea! I have a game like this too: I do all the laundry but refuse to turn Jeff's clothes the right way out. I fold everything inside out. If he rolls his socks in a ball and throws them in the wash, I leave them like that. It's my way of saying, "take that, you b&stard!" He never takes notice though so I'm left playing by myself. Sigh. I'm so lame.

Lisa Wheeler Milton said...

You've got quite a washing matrix going on there.

I can hear your boy someday explaining 'how it works' in your house. :)

Heidi said...

Babe, did you read this before you posted? :)

In our house we have a failure to recognize clean dishes in the dishwasher. We often take clean dishes out as we need them, but not emptying and putting away. Then B can't tell the difference (it'd be to hard to *remember* or *check*), and dirty get added.

Kristen M. said...

We are the exact same in my house! I HATE emptying the dishwasher so I make T do it. I don't have a rational explanation for it but I feel more down about housework while putting dishes away than at any other time. Luckily, T plays along and also kindly reloads it most of the time.

sarahbean said...

Nothing weird about getting sick in June here in NZ, being the start of winter and all... So maybe it's really a sign that you belong in the southern hemisphere.

shrink on the couch said...

Have you seen the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where they're having a silent war over the suitcase at the foot of the stairs? You must see it.

lapoflux said...

We both make a huge pile in the second sink where we have the drying rack and then call it Jenga... it is a game to see who can build the highest tower and who caves to put it away ;-)

apathy lounge said...

I do the dishes most often, but the Hubs thinks he knows how to do it better. Whatev!

Magpie said...

Good lord, the passive-aggressive over the dishwasher seems to be endemic! We have battles too.