Dish-ing On the Hubby

There’s a new thing Red likes to do and no it isn’t kinky at all. It’s so surprisingly clean that I’m amazed it even caught his eye since as a family we all share the slob-gene though in different degrees.

He’s into technology. I mean *into* technology and while he does switch off as and when needed; he likes gadgets and automation. There are things he’s pushed us to buy during the lockdown which have changed the way we look at our lives; certainly the way we live it.

We got a dishwasher a while back and it’s become Red’s go-to-place, go-to-thing to do. In the initial months after our marriage, any help with the dishes would mean he’d tackle the Corelle ware and leave the greasy metals for me to plod through. With the lockdown, he understood that not only are dishes fun to do, they are a great way to catch up on stuff you can do while being stationary and still getting work done.

But since the arrival of the dishwasher life has become a bit creepy. If I go to check if I can put some dirty dishes in there, the dishwasher’s either full or already running. If I got to check where a particular kitchen item may be, 9/10 times it’s in the dishwasher- hot and ready to be used. It’s freaking me out! This level of adherence to cleanliness and not dropping the ball at all isn’t the man I married!

The man I married can look at a bowl full of corn in the fridge for 10 minutes without being able to locate it, need help finding his glasses, wallet, phone, belt and underwear on a very regular basis. So this level of efficiency is very hard to swallow.

He loads it himself. He unloads it himself. He knows how much detergent to put in, which wash cycle is optimum for the number of dishes/utensils in it- it’s like living in the TWILIGHT ZONE!

And whenever I’m rinsing out the dishes after a meal I almost always find him looking over my shoulder saying the dishwasher can clean anything and I don’t need to rinse things out before putting it in for wash…and his eyes sparkle with an eerie glow when he says it.

If I stack the dishes on the kitchen counter or in the sink, he’ll creep up undetected and do his version of this-

It’s got the extent that after finishing off any kind of a meal or even a cup of coffee, I sneak into the kitchen and just to show my defiance, I rinse out the cup and put it on the counter and run off before anyone (Red, always Red) can find me and tell me to put it in the dishwasher!