STRIKE

I stare at the overflowing, swill-trough of a sink and wonder what kind of a filth pit I have allowed myself to exist in. Anger roils in me as I take in what, clearly, is completely unseen by the selectively-blind children of the household.

There are many ways to view this mess. One could call it sculpture, admiring the clever way cheerios-steeped-with-coagulated milk paints the bottom of breakfast bowls, and how those bowls teeter carefully atop bone-laden, barbecue sauce painted plates frozen in place by a mortar of mashed potatoes. Or, perhaps, consider the archeological implications of the mass, given the dozens of glasses and mugs—each speckled with their own strata and appearing for the first time this epoch, having so recently been excavated from the man cave (aka the boys’ room). Add a sprinkling of coffee grounds and crumbs and other detritus, and place all of it in a pool of gray tinted water… and you have the edifice that greets me upon my return from work, every day, since the start of summer vacation.

I didn’t even mention the flies.

I am the largely unseen, heavily ignored servant that cleans this biohazard. Or, with enough strategic planning, I can delay my return home and entry to the kitchen long enough so that my loving husband and lifelong partner is stuck with the cleanup—which he willingly does most days, knowing my aversion to cooking until the kitchen is “clean.” (“Clean” being a subjective term.)

Avoiding the migraine that awaits, I trudge to the bedroom, past the dreaded sock bin in the hallway. With 7 kids, I do not attempt to match up socks. Everyone’s feet must fend for themselves in our home. Unfortunately, the bin is overloaded with maybe two billion socks and the socks spray down the hallway outward from the bin, like an enormous volcanic cloth explosion. A teen passes me and the bin, ignoring the mess and the look of sheer horror on my face. I want to throttle him.

Just days before, this same child nearly convinced me he suffered from hearing loss. Said child, who skipped his chore 3 weeks in a row, attempted to plead innocence of his dereliction of duty claiming I never “asked him” to do it. “It” being his chore, for which he has been solely responsible these last 2 months.

Here my husband chimed in, maintaining that even he heard my many requests of the blatantly-ignoring-me-to-my-face child—whereupon I was so overwhelmed by the uncontrollable surge of desire for my husband (as his assertion of my sanity is undeniably the sexiest thing I’ve ever witnessed), that I nearly forgot to shrilly scream, “I TOLD YOU SO.”

Some days I can actually feel my hair getting grayer.

Returning to the kitchen, I have made a decision to dismantle the art installation in my sink. I scrub. I rinse. I get out a blow torch. Within 15 minutes, I’ve cleaned the dishes and rendered the sink spotless. I’ve also made a strategic decision not to ever do this again AND THIS TIME I MEAN IT. Four of seven children filter into the kitchen for one thing or another, and I decide to make my move: I launch into lecture mode. I tell them they are each now responsible for their own dishes. I tell them how unfair it is for their father and I to come home after 9 hours of work to face the horrendous mass I’d just exorcized. No more! Put your dishes in the dishwasher. If it is full, unload it if clean; run it if dirty. They are all nodding, they are all in agreement. I am on a roll. I am feeling empowered. I am feeling heard…

…until two hours later I find a full juice glass left next to the sink by one of the meeting’s participants. The sink was empty. The dishwasher was accepting.

My shoulders sagging, I pick of the glass and consider my frustration. It’s just a dirty glass, why let it bother me? Because I’m a person and my requests matter, a tiny, ferociously annoyed voice in my head replies.

I deposit the dirty glass in the offending child’s room, where I have decided that all dirty dishes will now go—onto the beds and dressers of the guilty. One of the house’s largely unseen, heavily ignored servants is on strike. Let the flies deliver the message.