While I love cooking, I hate washing dishes. Yes, hate. The “deal” in my household is whoever cooks, is absolved from washing dishes. This still doesn’t work because I hate washing dishes, even on the days when I didn’t cook.

I can’t identify what it is about the task itself that I hate; but I do know that part of it is growing up in a West Indian / Caribbean household. Kids are the dish washing machines and after a get together (I have a LARGE family) it can take close to an hour of back breaking work to get everything up to par. They needed to be up to par because some random aunty might peep over your shoulder and make you start over because ‘yuh forget to use soap? Why dis one dutty so?”.

It’s one of the worst feelings but it’s what made us “good” at watching dishes by the time we hit pre-teen – teen years.

I associate it with being a kid and having large groups of people around me. I’m no longer the former and I despise the latter unless I’ve had quite some time to prepare for it.

Mostly now, it’s the left over food mush in the drain trap, the wrinkly fingers from extended water exposure and the bad habit of bending over like a granny while doing dishes. It leaves me with a slight ache in my back that is almost mocking in its intensity.

I’d never get a dish washing machine but I see the appeal of having kids, even if it’s so they wash the dishes.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/daily-prompt-home-2/