How Bad Does It Have To Get?
There’s a word we’ve come to use at my house .. SANIFOOD. That’s the name we’ve coined for dirty silverware that comes out of the diswasher after it has completed the “sanitize” cycle. You know what I mean, that smudge of chocolate that didn’t come off the knife you used to frost the devil’s food cake you made over the weekend when your diet went out the window and you opted for death by chocolate.
As we empty the dishwasher, the conversation goes something like this (names changed to protect the innocent — or idiots if you prefer.)
Sally: (while chipping baked on peanut butter with her thumbnail off of the back of a spoon, then holding it up to Bob) This is fine, no one would ever notice, right?
Bob: (Looking inside a cup from the top rack that still has residue of last night’s tofu surprise casserole) Oh sure, that’s fine babe .. and if we pour hot coffee in this I’m sure no one will know.
Sally: GOOD POINT! (Reaching for glass bowl covered in so many “water” spots its hard to see your own hand through it) And if we pour the milk quickly in this for our cereal, then we’d never mind this at all.
Bob: Now you’re catching on.
Emptying the dishwasher has become a scientific analsysis of just HOW dirty something has to be before we decide it has to be washed by hand — or if we are in a lack luster mood simply run BACK thru the dishwasher again. In which case the conversation looks something like:
Bob: Babe? How many times have we washed THIS cup? (Taking sanifood hummingbird mug from top rack.)
Sally: Oh that’s the mug that is typically dirty honey.
Bob: Typically dirty?! Hey, why don’t we throw out all the dishes that are typically dirty babe, then we’d just have the commonly clean ones left.
Of course the query .. how bad does it have to get, doesn’t begin and end with the dishes. We live in a home where people are out numbered by critters of all kinds. So when the puppy gets excited and typically pees on the bed before scampering off to greet her primary parental figure … we quickly blot up the moisture with toilet paper that sits on the bed stand and ask our self — “Is this enough pee to strip the bed and wash the blankets? Or can I just peel back the top duvet? Or did it not soak in enough at all to matter and we can sleep on this for a couple of days until we DO laundry at the end of the week?”
How BAD does it have to get before you are willing to take action?
And its not like this is anything new. Parents know all about this. With your first born you sterilize all of the toys and run to wash off anything that baby drops on the linoleum. For baby number two, you pick up the binky that fell into the day care sand box and shake it off before giving it back to your cherub who is covered in more bacteria than a petri dish. Which is STILL better than baby number THREE for whom you don’t even PICK UP the toddler fork that fell in the dirt stating that it helps build her immune system if she isn’t overly sanitized.
How bad does it have to get before you decide to do something?
My fictitious name friend Fran recently broke up with her boyfriend this week, because she wasn’t getting what she wanted in the relationship. But it wasn’t an easy decision, it never is. Parts of the relationship worked. But she knew in her heart that it ultimately wasn’t what she wanted, needed or deserved. Each of us have to look at our upside down and distorted reflection in the back of the spoon and ask our self … is this mess something I need to clean up .. or can I live with the sanifood?
