Life Lessons Learned (accidentally) in the Kitchen: Part I

I've done too many dishes for too many men in my life. 

If that isn't the best way to open a blog post then I don't know what is.

But really, dishes are not my favorite. Yet I can recall way too many times where I have bitten the proverbial bullet and labored over a mountain of dirty, grimy dishes to "impress" a man. I'll leave that "impress" in quotes because it's actually quite ludicrous that I would think doing dishes would "impress" anyone, let alone a man, who doesn't care about dishes, clearly, since there's a pile of them in the sink that I'm about to dive in to.

I was making chili for the football game last week at a friends house, who happens to be a man. And he happened to have a massive pile of dishes in his sink. Now I'm no neat freak, but, I'm not a huge fan of cooking in a kitchen that has last week's scraps still laying around at the bottom of a sink. I make a mess when I cook, and I need all the mess to belong to me. I need a clean slate for my culinary creations.

So as I'm preparing to prepare my chili, I'm faced with a dilemma. My first instinct is to roll up my sleeves and clear the sink. I'd be doing it mostly for me, but hey wouldn't my friend also think that I'm super awesome and an amazing super-woman for doing his dishes? I mean, surely a woman that comes over and cooks AND cleans for you is one of incredible worth that you should snatch up right away and treat like a princess forever and ever, right?

RIGHT?

And then it hit me. I've done too many dishes for too many men in my life, and not one of them has treated me like a princess for any period of time, never mind forever and ever. In fact, most of them probably didn't ever notice. Yet for some reason, my very strange brain had me convinced for all these years, that showing a man I can do dishes will prove my worth, showcase my value. How absolutely stupid is that?

So here is where it stops. The dishes. The laundry. The cleaning. No mas. I don't need to do any of that for anyone else to prove how awesome I am. I am just awesome, and if for some mind-blowing reason that isn't apparent, then getting down and dirty with some dish detergent isn't going to change that.

In the end, my friend did the dishes. After many, many attempts at diversion (let's go outside, I'm going to start the fire, oh hey look the dogs need to go out, want me to make you a sandwich?). I understand his hesitation. After all, dishes aren't my favorite, either.