SO hates dishes but doesn't feel confident enough about any other household task to take it on without asking me to do it for him or expecting me to stand right over him and issue instructions every five seconds. (Not quite true . . . he "does the laundry," i.e., he starts a load of laundry, plays computer games for 2 hours, finishes the load, sets the laundry basket near the computer for another 2 hours, half-heartedly folds a few items from the basket, forgets it's clean, throws a few dirty things on top, and puts the whole thing back in the washer. Multiple times a week. My clothing is wearing out and I never get to wear it.) So he's on dish duty by his own choice. And this means that my meals come with the remnants of previous meals plastered to the dishes and the silverware. I usually just scrape it off and don't say anything, but the other night I brought the veggie chopper jar out to him. It was encrusted with raw potato. Disgusting, blackened raw potato. "Did you see a problem with this when you put it away?" I asked. "I thought it was supposed to be like that," he said. "Covered in garbage?" "It's new. How am I supposed to know what it's supposed to look like?" he asked. So I went to go wash it, and he yelled at me and told me that if it was such a problem, he'd do it. And it's back in the drying rack again, still covered with rotting potato.

I cooked with my kid today, and had to keep putting tools aside and fishing for another tool that wasn't covered in yuck. Why are we paying a water bill if all he's doing is getting the dishes wet? And then throwing a screaming temper tantrum if I complain . . . am I really some overly-demanding perfectionist if I think it's disgusting to only wash the inside of the bowls and to leave last night's soup dripped down the outside?