Dirty dishes. I hate everything about dirty dishes. I hate the way that they look, the way that they smell, and how I have to position my prissy little fingers “just so” on them so I don’t get anything icky on me. Just thinking about it turns my stomach.

I have no idea how to hand wash a dish. I’m not even joking. I have never had to wash dishes before and no one ever formally showed me how to do it. I’m not sure how hot the water has to be or what the soap-to-dishes ratio is. I don’t understand how a dish can be considered clean after you just wiped it with the rag that you wiped the last dirty dish with *shudder*. The whole thing is gross and doesn’t make any sense. I’m quite happy to eat off of a dish that someone else has hand washed and sit in my ignorance, but when I’m cleaning it myself I have the desire to use a different rag for each item Monk-style. How do you even know when a dish is clean? Is it just when it looks clean…because a dog can lick a plate and make it look clean?! I rinse with hot water and let my husband take care of the rest. He was, after all, a dishwasher at a restaurant once as a teenager…he’s a professional!

Thankfully, I have a dishwasher and if I rinse a dish and put it in the dishwasher immediately after use…it’s not so bad. But many times this doesn’t happen. My daughter may be pulling me in three different directions and I have a million other things to do and dishes get laid on the countertop and then erased from my memory. My dear, darling hubby handles the loading and unloading and, well, basically everything related to dishes (God bless him!).

You know how some people have certain smells that they just can’t handle, kinda the way men gag at a dirty diaper? Well, dishes are my “bad smell”. I can’t stand the smell of dirty dishes even when (especially when?!) they’re in the dish water. Eck! I always packed my lunch for school, but sometimes on pizza day I’d eat the school lunch. I hated having to drop my tray off in the dishwashing room. It smelled so bad in there. I’d take a huge breath before I went in and tried to hold my breath the whole time I was in there. It’s hard to smile at a lunch lady when you’re trying not to breathe.

It gets worse. I can’t stand the smell of cold food. I mean, if food is supposed to be cold (like cheese, or milk, or strawberries), then I’m fine. It is cold leftovers, cold meat, and obviously food that went bad that I just can’t stomach. It’s not something that I can power through…I will throw up. If I know there is such an item in the fridge and I need to grab something…I hold my breath first. If I catch a whiff I have to run far away and breathe some fresh air. I would much rather change a poopy diaper than go anywhere near cold food or dirty dishes. The kitchen is not my friend.