You're Soaking In It

I hate doing dishes probably more than anything in the world. I'd rather get a mammogram. I'd rather pick up dog doo with my bare hands.

So I swore I'd do the dishes this last Sunday, it being Easter and all. I figured, if there was a Jesus, he'd probably want me to do the dishes. So I took a nap, scraped down the hideous oil painting I'd began the night before, swept the floor and did some laundry. Then I took another lie down. This is when the panic attack hit. The damn dishes. The income taxes, the property taxes, the mortgage, and the dishes. I was snowballing. I promised myself that if I ever got the dishes done, I would never use a dish again. I would buy paper plates (sorry trees) and plastic forks (sorry everything).

I got out of bed, walked past my pile of 2006, 2007 and now 2008 taxes, past my mortgage bill, past my phone where there was a message from my dad wondering what I was going to do about my property taxes, and into the kitchen, and out the back door.

My backyard looked okay. Nothing was on fire, to my disappointment. I turned around and headed back into the kitchen. Turn the water on, just turn the water on, I told myself. I turned the water on. Letting the water run (sorry ocean) I put the few dishes away that were on the drying rack from the last time I did dishes, four months earlier. Then I got down to work.

I made a deal with myself. I'd just wash the dishes that lined my counter and that was all. I'd do the rest, the stuff in the sink, another day. Just get through the overflow, that's all I had to do. Jesus would understand.

I did it. I washed those fucking glasses way deep down inside and all over the outside and on the bottoms. I washed four bowls. I did not wash the silverware. The silverware would wait for the next time.

I dried my hands on a paper towel and felt lighter as I watched my neighbor through the kitchen window. This isn't the neighbor with the blue feet, this is the neighbor to the south. A single woman, who smokes cigarettes with her son like he's her lover. But that's a story for another day.

Maybe I'll take a look at my taxes tonight. Right after I do this one thing to my painting...