Airing Out The Dirty Dishes...

Everyday whenever Cody says or does something too simple or not thoroughly enough, I find myself sighing and muttering under my breath, "Men". "Men" is simply the term used to rationalize why your husband or boyfriend does the things he does. It is the term we women use to try to remind ourselves why we exist. It is the term that will roughly sum up the rest of my post.

Men.

I had to work yesterday, but my husband got to enjoy a day off, which he deserved. When he gets a day off, I usually take advantage of him and ask him to do a couple chores for me because it is really rough going to work, then coming home, cleaning the kitchen, starting laundry, cooking dinner, changing laundry, eating dinner, cleaning up the kitchen yet again, and trying to fit in a bath before going to bed.

*sigh*

Wives and mothers are very under-appreciated.

That's an argument for another post though. Back to the chores which I asked him to do. We had queso over the weekend and I had the bowls and pots soaking for a day (everyone soaks their dishes for one day at some point or another). So I asked him to empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher, put them away, and then fill the dishwasher back up with dirty dishes. And, yes, I do have to remind him to put the dishes away. I once came home with a counter piled high with dishes. When I asked him what was up with it, he pointed to the chore list and it simply said:

1.) Empty dishwaher.
2.) Fill dishwasher.

So far this seems like a pretty simple process, right? Wrong.

I forgot one teensy little tiny step this time. I forgot to tell him that between putting dishes away and filling the dishwasher, he must first RINSE and SCRUB the dirty dishes with queso all over them. To a woman, it is second nature to rinse and scrub the dishes before tossing them into the dishwasher. To a man, it is part of a step process. If a woman forgets one tiny step, the man isn't going to even give second thought to it.

So today I went into my kitchen to start dinner and smelled this awful funky smell. I couldn't find a source so I figured once I emptied the sink I would spray some bleach and it would just go away. So I opened my dishwasher to begin fillng it and- WHOOSH! Out came the funky smell! I was blown back against my stove gagging and gasping.

With tears in my eyes I grabbed onto the counter and pinched my nose to look inside. Here is what I found:

Now, nothing, NOTHING about this picture would be have been "alright" or considered "a job well done" to someone of the female gender....but to him, he thinks that he did what I told him to do (and he did) and goes about his day not giving a second thought to the queso and ground beef mixture now stuck to the bottom of my dishwasher.

He also thinks the same way about several other things about the house. Like, when I ask him to do laundry. I separate all the clothes for him (Heaven forbid he dye all of our white towels pink) and usually start the first load out of courtesy. Now, when a woman goes to change the wash from the washer to the dryer, she remembers to pull out any delicates (bras, super-soft-cozy socks from her sister, wool sweaters, etc) and carefully hang them out to air dry. Men just take anything from the washer and put it straight into the dryer, there is no checking what exactly it is he is putting in there. All he knows is that his wife told him to change out the laundry and that it what he is doing. Because again, men are not detail-oriented. And this, friends, has cost me a couple bras, sweaters, and pairs of super-soft-cozy socks. You'd think I'd learn, right?

Unless you spell out the brand, color, and size of the bottle, 99% of the time, he will get the wrong one. If you aren't meticulous and write out every little step IN DETAIL, he will never even consider or think of it and then you will be the one left with the nasty surprising funky smell at the bottom of your dishwasher which you will now have to scrape off.

It may seem like I criticize him a little too harshly or complain about him. That is not what this is at all. This post was an observation about the differences between the two of us. Men and woman are COMPLETE and TOTAL opposites and God made us that way so we attract eachother (another sign of God's sense of humor). Now, we may have some common interests, we may have some small similarities, but at the end of the day we are still two completely different people and sexes, with brains that function totally opposite of the other's.

I love my man though. No matter how much detail I have to put into chore or grocery lists, I love him.