Trying to instill a kitchen system for 9 people in one house is difficult. We have dinner worked out. 2 people cook every night, dish of their choice. Partners are drawn on Saturday from pieces of paper in a plastic jar. Dishes are chosen before food shopping on Monday. Precise ingredients are required to ensure that we stick to budget and don’t waste food. We are allowed $4.50 per day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It sounds like a pittance at first but it’s enough. Our Team Leader does the dishes each night in return for not cooking (we have a dishwasher.) Anyways, dinner is a thriving enterprise. If only the same were true for daily dishes.

It doesn’t seem difficult in my mind. We agreed to put our own dishes away in the dishwasher after use. If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, remove them and insert your dirty dishes. If you are running late, leave the dirty dishes in the sink and empty the clean dishes when you get back, followed by the loading of your dirty dishes. Why do stacks of dirty dishes pile up in the sink every single day? It’s as if 6 invisible members of our team had to miss the kitchen advisory meeting due to “personal reasons”. Ohhhh, so the pile of dishes only exists because they missed the memo. No prob, Bob. But there are no fucking invisible people on the team. They haven’t even invented invisibility cloaks yet, obvi. So someone (or something) is neglecting his or her duty in the kitchen. Let the detective work begin…

And why do 18-year-olds not understand the concept of putting away the things they took out? ‘Yes, 18-year-old #1, when you take the mozzarella cheese out of the refrigerator, you need to put it back after it’s done.’ ‘No, I know that other people might use it, but there’s a chance they don’t, in which case they have to put it away themselves, which isn’t fair.’ ‘Yes, I understand you just forgot, but you forgot the milk earlier today, the mayonnaise at lunch and the leftover quiche before that… You are a moron.’ (I don’t say the moron part). Was every child 5 years younger than me raised in a McDonalds Play Pen? I’m being unbelievably hypocritical here, but gosh darn it children, grow up!