Oh, just go wash the dishes Moom

Yeah, just go do that, why don’tcha, and leave me alone. I used to tell The Commander that when I was like three or whatever. Get outta here, Moom.

I like to wash dishes. I liked to wash dishes when I was three and we lived on Superior Street and we didn’t have a dishwasher. I’m not sure I knew anyone who did have a dishwasher back in those days. My grandma over on John Street always had an army of dishwashers at her disposal. I don’t ever remember helping with the dishes at her house. Yikes! I might’ve been at risk for injury with all those whirling dervish aunts and great aunts around. I liked to stand at The Commander’s sink on Superior Street and wash her coffee percolator, watching the soapsuds squish out of all the little holes. She still has that percolator.

I loved when we would go to “Detrite in the middle of the nite”* and visit Funny Granddaddy and Bolette. Bolette would take me out into her kitchen and let me help wash the dishes while The Commander and Grandroobly yakked and guffawed with Funny Granddaddy and The Commander’s siblings. Yee-hee-hee-hee. Bolette was a retired teacher with no children of her own and she would always ask me questions about school and then LISTEN to the answers. And she would always let me play with the soap suds. She was my step-grandmother** but I loved her (and I think vice versa).

And I loved doing the dishes with my cousins in the Old Cabin after community dinners. We were middle-school age when the whirling dervish aunts decided it was safe to turn dishwashing duties over to us. I’m not sure we were the best dishwashers. I bet we took a long time to wash the dishes. If we got into joking around and making up silly songs and stuff. On the other hand, if we were anxious to get down to the beach and take a rowboat out or do cartwheels or swim or whatever, I bet we were really fast. And probably missed a lot of dirt.

Anyway. I have been living without a working dishwasher for umpteen million years now. I am standing next to the Landfill Chitchen sink as I write this, leaning my right knee into the old dead dishwasher door. I kind of felt like ranting when I got home today. No particular reason and you may get my rant in a couple days. Or maybe it’ll be a plassover. But after walking to the Plum Market and back, I found a *few* dishes in the sink (Mouse was here making a fancy rice/bean/veggie salad for her lunches over the next week or so.) I asked Mouse if she was finished in the chitchen and, when she said she was but she wanted to clean her dishes up, I jumped to it. I’ll wash them. It’s okay. There aren’t that many. Washing dishes by hand almost always relaxes me. Now. I did not like when the beach urchins were teenagers and I would sometimes get up in the morning to face a totally wrecked chitchen. But that would be a whole ‘nother entry.

* When I was really small, we would get up at 3 AM in order to catch the first ferry across the Straits of Mackinac on our trips to visit my grandparents in Detroit.

** The Commander’s mother, Emily Lathers MacMullan, died in a car accident when The Commander was 15 — in 1936.

5 Responses to “Oh, just go wash the dishes Moom”

  1. Margaret Says:

    I await your rant with eagerness. I like putting the dishes in the dishwasher and letting IT do the work. However, I do find vacuuming very relaxing and therapeutic. I like putting lines in the carpet. 🙂

  2. Sam Says:

    I sometimes store whine in my dishwasher. I use hand-washing (dishes, not unmentionables) to warm up in the winter. I was not a fan, however, when I was a teen, and dishwashing was on my chore list. [There’s a fine set of declarative sentences!—more or less.]

  3. Tonya Watkins Says:

    I don’t mind hand washing the dishes when we’re at Harstine (for just the two of us), but I can’t IMAGINE not having a dishwasher at home. No way!! Always had a dishwasher growing up, as far as I remember (maybe not when I was itty bitty). One of those gigantic pull-it-over-to-the-sink and hook-the-hose-to-the-faucet kinds. My MIL still has one of those! (Do they even make them anymore?)

  4. Karen F Says:

    Tonya – The Commander has one of those “roll-to-the-sink and hook-the-hose-to-the-faucet” kinds!! I think they can still be found – there’s still a lot of kitchens out there that may have a storage spot for a portable, but not the right place/space to plumb in a “built-in”.

    I’ve replaced dishwashers… at least once at the Old Bridge house, TWICE here (the first time was when the not-very-old GE that was here when we moved in FAILED, and the replacement part was gonna cost more than a replacement dishwasher! We went to Whirlpool and never looked back).

  5. kayak woman Says:

    The Commander’s dishwasher drives me nuts!