A simple chore which tends to be made impossible

There are countless encounters that happen every day that many cannot stand. This could be a wide variety of things.

For some, it is the sound of someone chewing with their mouth open. Interestingly, however, in some Asian cultures, chewing with the mouth open is a sign of gratitude and enjoyment of the meal at hand. For others, things such as someone constantly being late, not using turn signals or taking excessive selfies may ring a similarly uncomfortable bell.

Pet peeves are often contextual, with some sort of personal explanation behind them. It is not common for a pet peeve to be unjustified. For myself, my pet peeve is doing the dishes.

Not doing the dishes is a fundamental error. It is quite simple: cook the food and while waiting for the meal to be ready, clean the dishes. By the time you’re done cleaning up the mess you have made, your food will be ready to eat. 

Not to mention, cleaning the dishes takes a minute (or less) to do. Suppose you just cooked marinated chicken in the oven, it would be wise to clean the glass pan immediately as the dirty pans contaminants will eventually dry and become even more arduous to clean.

It seems more times than not, we will forget to do our dishes if we mentally tell ourselves, “I’ll do the dishes after I eat.”

Not only is avoiding the dishes lazy, but it is also disingenuous to others around you. Personally, my roommates in Kansas City (I transferred to NDSU after my sophomore year of college) were unapologetically messy. 

At one point, a storm of fruit-flies had managed their way into our apartment. I would bite my tongue and it would linger in my mind. Eventually, I spoke up and nothing came out of it. It was either I did their dishes or accepted a fruit-fly infested apartment. 

This is when I realized, prior to living with these people, I was not the best at doing the dishes either. There were no dishes to do while living in the dorms freshman year, and in high school my mom did them. 

This is when I realized I did the same thing to my mom that my roommates were doing to me. The only difference was I had been doing it for years and I had only known these guys for a few months. 

My mom has always kept a positive and happy attitude about this and other issues. This inspired me to be more optimistic about things. One day, I will not have to worry about doing someone else’s dishes, and I began looking at cleaning up other people’s messes through a different lens. It may be their mess, but it is all of our apartment. To an outsider, that mess is all of ours.

When your roommates overflow the trash can, take it out, because it is going to be you who needs to use it. When that moment comes, make sure either your trash can, your sink or your hamper is not overflowing.