Generosity, Vanity and Dishes

I can’t lay claim to being generous all the time, I have a certain amount of self-interest running through the bones as most people do. But there was one time, a long time ago....

Vanity is no stranger, thinking of myself as the “Boss”, the king cheese, the leader, I’ve always been at the top of my popularity poll. I once managed a company for the owners who lived overseas. They visited about twice a year and left me to my own devises as long as my plans were achieved and no crocodiles started snapping at their collective butts. I was well paid but was expected to do a great deal of overseas travel on business. This was why, when my unused frequent flyer points reached the high side of half a million, I began thinking that my wife could do with a holiday.

Two young boys and a busy husband must have produced some stress and strain for her. It had been about four years since her parents had visited from Scotland, and at least ten since she and I had gone to Edinburgh to visit them. From this distance in time it doesn’t really matter if alcohol induced me to offer or not, the fact is I told her she could go back to visit her homeland using my points to pay for the trip. Generosity? It was my idea so there must have been something in it for me.

My vanity was massaged by being able to do this, the wife telling her friends about it would surely raise my status. Of course I would use the fact I made the offer, to increase my stature among the staff and customers... come on! I’m not that bad, after all I’m a man. My self interest could only have been related to the remote chance of the odd time during her holiday presenting a possibility of me putting my feet up and just relaxing.

Now this was all happening back in the early 90’s and memory does grow dim, but I’m pretty sure I was rewarded for the gesture, of course this could be that old man dreaming thing. We decided that two weeks away from home would be about all the fun she could stand, and plans went forward quickly. I don’t think she was hurrying in case I changed my mind, she just wanted to get going. Within five days she waved goodbye, leaving me with two kids and a list as long as my imagined intellect was formidable.

Our house was big, not fancy and a little old, but comfortable, perhaps huge would be a better word, even enormous I thought, as I stood in the street looking up at it when the kids and I arrived back from the Airport. My thoughts drifted to the possibility of a cleaning issue, all those rooms. The boys were 6 and 8 back then, those are years when any photo you took inspired “oh”, “ah” and “aren’t they darling” from relatives and the wife’s girl friends. Unfortunately those are also the years when “clean your room” seems to mean do whatever you like. As the boys wanted eggs and bacon I started up the hill. We hadn’t done the dishes in the rush to leave earlier that day, they could wait. The list my wife had left me took the better part of a hour to read through during the commercial breaks next day, I wasn’t worried, I had two weeks and no one to nag me.

Being the boss, I was able to take time off work to do the things that needed doing on a daily basis. I took the kids to meet the school bus, aired the clothes when they needed clean ones, shopped when absolutely necessary, or when the fast food grew boring, five outlets within five miles isn’t bad. We had a pool so baths weren’t a necessity, good thing it was warm as the towels quickly dried when thrown over the lawn chairs. The garbage was picked up on Mondays so the long walk up and down the hill from the street was only scheduled twice. I was organised, so really the list she’d left wasn’t necessary. Things were going well. Must add garbage bags and fly spray to the shopping list, those bins were beginning to whiff.

Only two weekends fell in the period she would be away, I could manage the kids outings with no problem. The younger would be taken to music lessons, something he enjoyed, while the older would miss sport and Scouts due to illness. A new Play Station was acceptable compensation. Over all, the kids had a good time, they had plenty to keep busy with around the house, computer games, TV, the pool, basketball in the backyard. I let them have friends over whenever they wanted, there was no homework sent from school, don’t know why the wife says they have too much. As for me, I was busy but happy, got a lot of reading done and the girl at the video store started calling me by my first name.

I had been careful to make sure we ate out as much as possible, but still, there seemed to be a lot of dishes used. We each had a glass for milk and another for water and soft drink, I made sure they knew which was which, you don’t mix milk and coke. As the dish cupboard became increasingly bare, the countertop became somewhat overcrowded with dirty dishes. The dining room table was just inside the next room so we placed everything but glasses there. The wife has this thing about rings on tables.

As the second week grew to a close I bought some paper plates and plastic utensils which would ease the dish shortage, the recycle bin was to go out that Sunday night so that was fine, I still hadn’t bought those garbage bags. Arriving back on Monday morning the wife would be exhausted so we decided that on Sunday we would spend a couple of hours tidying up and perhaps even have baths. We, meaning I, planned to do the tidy up just after dinner at McDonalds that night.

The kids insisted they take a day off school, we would leave home at 6:00am to be at the airport a couple of hours before the arrival, so an early night for all. It was only after putting them to bed Sunday night I realised I hadn’t changed the sheets. And then there was dusting and vacuuming, all those rooms! I sat thinking about that, and those dishes, they had started off collecting in the sink, then overran the countertop and now the dining room table and floor, I had put down towels.

The situation reminded me of a story I’d read as a kid, the man of the house was left to himself as the wife went off for a trip. As I thought about that book, the similarities to my situation struck me as an inspiration. To cut a long story short, at the last minute he decided the only way to overcome his dish problem by the time the wife arrived home, was to place the dishes on the back lawn and hose them down. Well, it was getting late but still daylight.

JAWhite
January 2010

"Oh and I think I hear some dishes calling out to you...wash me, dry me, put me away! You’d better tend to them or they might grow legs and run away!”, LAveryBrown.

This comment, sent to me by a writer, prompted the telling of the story. To this day I have an aversion to dish water which you might notice should you read my writings, there seems to be a common thread through some of them.  Thanks for reminding me LAB.

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