Life is too short to spend it washing dishes. The sign is taped to a restaurant's front window on NW Glisan, and every time I pass, I think of the dishwasher. I wonder what he (or she) thinks when he reads it, on his way to punch the timeclock for the dinner shift.
Only some people can afford to keep their plates clean in the cupboards, while they slap down twenty dollars on a dinner, never listening to the clink of dirty china against the sink's stainless steel, or dipping their hands in bubbly water, never arranging mugs and bowls on a rack to dry.
My father-in-law meditates while standing over the sink, winding down from a day of teaching mathematics at the university. Another woman I know says grace while polishing her plates, filled with gratitude for her meal. I have often had my best ideas while scrubbing grime from the tiles on my floor.
I want to rip the sign from the glass, change the words to read, simply: Life is too short.
Comments (3)
Karrie-this is a full-on prose poem. Just lovely. That last line, wow! It's funny, I was thinking about this exact phenomenon the other day while driving. I saw a license plate frame that said "Dull women have clean houses." My first thought was "Yeah!" because, by that standard, I am certainly NOT a dull woman. But then I got to thinking, isn't that sort of harsh to the career housewives of the world?
Posted by Dewi | July 16, 2003 9:10 PM
Posted on July 16, 2003 21:10
Definitely harsh to the housewives! (Not to mention all the squeaky clean single women of the world) And you know, lurking beneath the surface of the "clean" person, there is usually a fascinating mess . . . as with us all.
Aren't we all just ascinating messes inside?
PS: As I write this, the pile of notebooks, scrap papers, research, to-do lists, books, gum wrappers, napkin notes, lotion, magazines, zip disks, and job advertisements is growing. The stuffed monkeys manage to stay on top of the pile . . . Maybe it's time for me to clean.
PPS: Hey, what about dull men with clean houses? Ha!
Posted by karriehiggins | July 17, 2003 6:07 AM
Posted on July 17, 2003 06:07
Give me a dull man who cleans over the exciting one who doesn't any day!
The message isn't just classist, but, as you point out, sort of misses the point about cleaning--the meditative quality you spoke of, plus just owning up to your own mess, taking responsibility. I hate to get all family-values, but it's got negative implications on that level too. What if it had said, "Life's too short to pick your dog's crap up"? Not so pretty then.
Lest ye think I'm self-righteous...I'm always grateful when Jamey decides to do the pile of dishes that have stacked up at the sink...
Posted by kelley | July 17, 2003 7:39 AM
Posted on July 17, 2003 07:39