You see in the photos my rescued sink area. I’ve just finished my weekly “kitchen rescue” and am happy to share a picture. (Yes, my kitchen needs remodeling but I’m happy not to get started on that process for now.) While cleaning, I came across the sponge. I had to use it to clean the sink which I had sprinkled with some Bon Ami. Obviously, my dear husband had used it last because it was full of black bits of gunk. NOT rinsed out.
Now, dear reader, many of you may be thinking I should not complain about this. My husband actually washes dishes, cooks, “cleans” too. I am lucky, as so many of you have pronounced me over the past twelve years. Lucky that my husband does all that (and why, I wonder, do we continue to treat men as if they’re imbeciles around the house and like gods if and when they do housework?).
Well, here I am complaining and maybe suggesting my husband is dumb because he doesn’t rinse out the sponge after using it. (Nor does he do this with the dish cloth, and after all dish cloths which can be washed are for the really dirty work and the sponge, if needed, is for the scrubbing of the last bits after most of the bits are off and then of course one must rinse well in hot water both the sponge and the dish cloth, doesn’t he know that? No! Don’t even get me started on his lack of knowing which towel is for drying of hands and which for drying of dishes--only the one just taken out is for drying dishes of course, with maybe a few dishes dried with it and certainly nothing dirty touching it like hands or floor--when in doubt just use a dish towel freshly removed from the drawer of clean ones whenever a dish is to be dried).
I digress. My point is to say that just the other day I had a revelation as to why this might be so. This lack of knowledge in my husband, and perhaps some other men, when it comes to these finer points of housekeeping. Why, they don’t read women’s magazines! We even call them women’s magazines, don’t we? I was just reading in Martha Stewart Living’s January issue the other day about how one should rinse a dish cloth in hot water immediately after using it, so as to prevent bacteria and mildew from growing in the cloth while it hangs near the sink ready for another use. Why, of course! I knew this instinctively.
But how can I expect George to know it? He doesn’t read Martha! Or any of the myriad other women's mags. I’ve known since he became a father to our daughter that he has a disadvantage in that area because he didn’t read Young Miss or Seventeen magazines when he was a boy. He couldn’t know that you can’t comb wet hair with a brush or you’ll get split ends, and if he did know that I might be worried. And now I know why he doesn’t get all worked up over our children possibly dying from e. coli because he dried with an unclean dish towel.
I must be more understanding of him from now on. Instead of my usual shrieks of “ewww, gross! What did you do to this sponge?”, I must find gentler ways of approaching the subject. Saying “you really should rinse out the dish cloth after each use” may still sound like an insult coming from his wife, so perhaps I’ll sit him down with Martha every month and let him read to his heart’s content. Or perhaps I’ll start a men’s housekeeping magazine. Ya think that one will go over very well?
Here's to a more gentle approach to life, and husbands, in 2008...Lisa
(and don't you love my new sponge frog? I found him in my Christmas stocking! courtesy of T.J. Maxx, thank you very much.)
Comments