Dirty Dishes With Attitude

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From an early age on, like every other little girl, I was doomed to help with the dishes. While my grandma washed them, I stood beside her, toweled the plates and cups dry, and made sure that the old silverware and the glasses were spotless and shiny.

I didn’t like doing the dishes, but it was part of a girl’s life, and I accepted it. The idea of boys or men helping in the kitchen was laughable back in the ’60s and ’70s, we all knew later on as women we would do the dishes for our families, the husbands, the kids, and everybody else who would come to visit us. We all would be good wives, and we would make sure the breadwinners and king of the castles would not be bothered with simple household chores.

The universe works in mysterious ways, and somehow the poor Austrian farm girl was sent to an elite boarding school in Bavaria (South of Germany) because my grandma was best friends with a nun who was part of the convent that would from now on not just educate me, but also form me into wife-material so I would become the GOOD WIFE men wanted and needed -the nuns never talked about love or desire.

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It was set in stone, I would have kids, and perhaps work a little, solely to make sure my good education wasn’t a total waste of time, but in the end, I would be a mother and housewife -somewhere in Austria.

For the time being, I accepted my role in life, after all, generations of women before me had lived the same lifestyle.

Boarding School and teenage years

Kitchenduty they called it in boarding school and I feared it like the vampire fears the daylight. Sister Hildegard, a nun as wide as tall, with a big grin on her face, her hands tugged away under her apron, greeted us when we came to see her. A rotating duty raster made sure every class, from 1st grade up to 13th grade, was part of it. There were no volunteers but girls were sent down to the kitchen frequently, it was a common punishment for every harmless prank we played, or ‘sin’ we committed -like talking after the lights had been turned off.

The rotating kitchen duty lasted for a week. It included setting the tables before the meals, giving out the food military style to a row of hungry girls who stood in line, and of course afterward we had to clean a mountain of dirty plates, glasses, pots, and pans. Guess what I did?

I was the youngest and littlest in my class, so I had no say in the matter and was declared part of the dishwashing crew. I understood the logic. I was little, and democracy was non-existent in this case and so I washed and dried an endless amount of dishes. While others seemed to do this chore with ease, I disliked every minute of it. I simply hated doing the dishes, I hated it with all my heart.

When I grew taller and taller, I had myself grandfathered into my role and continued to do the dishes. Not even once in all those years was I giving out food or set the tables.

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A Young Adult

After the passing of my grandma, I moved to Vienna and rented a room from an older couple. I was allowed to cook, but only had a bathroom sink and a small burner. I kept all my dishes in a plastic bucket, didn’t eat much at home but had signed up for a daily lunch at the cafeteria at the University of Vienna instead, where I studied. I skipped breakfast most of the days, had a sandwich in the evening, or warmed up a soup. There were hardly any dishes in my sink. Life was good!

When I met my husband and followed him to America, we lived in a small apartment called ‘Our Shoebox.’ Of course, there was no dishwasher other than me, and being the good wife I was brought up to be -and madly in love- I didn’t mind doing the dishes. My husband put his used cups and plates in the sink and I took care of it. Wasn’t that the normal thing to do?

Even when I worked the same hours and made an equal amount of money, the dishes were my chore.

For us, children were not in the cards, it was just the two of us -and dirty dishes.

20 years with a Dishwasher

From 1992 to the day in 2009 when we lost our home and so much more, we always had a dishwasher and I never wasted a thought on it. It was a normal thing to have in a kitchen, just like the washer and dryer in the utility room. Why should I be grateful? Nobody else was.

Houselessness

All my readers who read my posts about “Losing it all” know that we lived with a good friend for about six months after we had lost our home. We were trying to find work and a home of our own. When we found a job for my husband and a new place in Memphis, TN we took a risk and moved.

With our three dogs, we lived in a house full with empty rooms and a kitchen with empty cabinets. We had a dishwasher in the kitchen which we didn’t use because we only had two sets of plates.

Back then, for the first time, I felt gratitude when I stood at the sink doing the dishes. We had a home again. We had food, I could cook and the dirty plates and silverware in the sink were part of the normal life I had missed. I was the good wife again and loved it!

It took about six months before we had enough second-hand china in the cabinets with a variety of plates and mugs and finally I run dishwasher for the first time.

It was such a special feeling. I stood in the kitchen, listened to the humming noise that the appliance made and I felt so special. It was another sign that we had made it! Our life was beginning to feel normal again.

Ohio

For various reasons, we decided to leave Memphis behind and after just two years we moved to Ohio. While we had arrived in Tennessee with almost nothing, when we left we needed to rent a moving truck and it was full.

When we arrived in Ohio, we faced homelessness again for about 24 hours. The house we had naively rented without seeing, was not liveable. It was filthy and dirty, full of trash. With pure luck and a little bit of determination, we found another place within one day and moved into a small house we would have never even considered under normal circumstances.

It had a small, old kitchen, but no fridge, no stove, no dishwasher. Just a sink and three cabinets. We had signed a lease for one year and I counted the days until the contract would be over. Months before, I started looking for a new place and my ad on Craigslist, another provokingly honest one, attracted the right landlord and he was willing to rent to us -even though we had three dogs and no credit rating at all.

The house was my dream. We have lived here now for ten years and we love it. It’s a character house and it’s huge, with enough room for our dogs and us. Besides living room, dinning room and bedrooms, I even have a workroom and a sewing room. The house has everything, but a dishwasher. The kitchen is too small so I did the dishes by hand -again.

Did I hate it. Not at first!

Year in, year out.

I had promised myself to never forget how fortunate I am, yet the daily dirty dishes got to me. It’s not easy to be grateful when you do something everyday that you just don’t like.

Perhaps this is how humans work. We make promises to ourselves, and then with time we forget about them and our old attitude comes back. Maybe our flaws make us human?

Best Birthday Present Ever

For my 60th birthday, I got a dishwasher and I love it. It’s a portable one, the perfect size for two people. It sits on a small rolling cabinet and it fits perfectly right beside our sink.

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It runs with just 1 1/2 gallons of water and it cleans the dishes perfectly. We actually save water and electricity now, which I find interesting.

It has a basket to rinse of vegetables and fruits. Who would have thought?

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I was hesitant to order it, but when they marked it down from $450 to $225 for the Black Friday Sales, I caved and I am so happy I did.

How much easier life is with a dishwasher. How spoiled I am?

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No more dirty dishes in the sink, even my husband has now learned to open the door of a dishwasher :-).

I know how silly I must sound. How can a woman be over the moon excited about a portable dishwasher but I am. It even got a name. I call it “James” like a butler because it makes my life easier.

Will my gratitude fade with time? Yes, of course. What can I say, I am human?

We have a home. Food to eat and dirty dishes in the sink (or dishwasher).

For all of us, life is good!