The Thing About Dishes

How Not To Have To Dry the Dishes

By Shel Silverstein

If you have to dry the dishes

(Such an awful, boring chore)

If you have to dry the dishes

(‘Stead of going to the store)

If you have to dry the dishes

And you drop one on the floor—

Maybe they won’t let you

Dry the dishes anymore.

This poem has been my mantra. I've spent my entire life never having to do anything. As a kid, nobody had my respect. I lived in squalor and was beyond abused for the most random of things. So, when my mom shut my in my room that one time and told me to clean it... I sat on the floor and refused. Nothing came of it. When she decided to make me do the dishes she'd stacked to the sky, I took all day about it. I don't think I ever finished. 

When I wanted something, likewise, I found if I screamed enough, and fought enough, I could outlive their resistance (or my dad's anyway). This is why gifts are love to me.

Later in life, say in PhyEd, I found mindless sports dumb and refused to participate. I'd literally sit in the center of the court, fully clothed, and tell them I preferred to use my brain, so no, I wouldn't play their monkey games. That put me in in-school suspension where I could read and learn things. I went further, though. I skipped most of 9-12th grades. I learned valuable college-level knowledge and beyond on my own. At 18 I graduated w/ an HSED in 2 days by acing tests; I never even studied. 

I'd spent most of those years hitch hiking, partying, drugged, I suppose. In later moments of clarity  I realized this brain was better and did better by it. I still wonder what good that is sometimes... so much useless knowledge wasting away in there.

Anyway, my point is that on and on I continued to refuse. I'd done enough I didn't want to do, after all, and who is anyone to tell me what and when and how? It's become second nature. People made me do things I didn't want to. People didn't deserve my compliance or acknowledgement . There has to be a line I need to draw - a line I need to SEE.  It's hard, because I've gotten what I wanted if I just refuse hard enough.

The big problem is my husband isn't giving in, and, well, when I don't want to get up... or get dressed... or clean anything.... entropy and a slow death is all there is left. While I feel there's nothing left but more of the same, I'd hate to be a bed-bound blob in 10-20 years with no way to turn back the clock. I need to somehow change this pattern of thinking.

Hoo, boy. I'm in for a ride.

~DC