Eating Ice Cream with A Fork

Each piece of dinnerware has a specific edible partner; the salad fork for the salad, the soup spoon for the soup, gravy bowl to the gravy, butter dish for the butter, etc. and the only time this pairing of utensil food mating is broken is when I suffer from a family contributed backload of house chores.


Wait, “backload” would be the wrong term to use, because that’s assuming that laundry isn’t done everyday or that dishes aren’t done everyday, when they are. So I will call it the “Everyday-load”.

If each person in my family of four, took a shower for the day that would mean that the total number of dirty clothing items removed and placed into the laundry basket should equal one load, Wrong! by the time I get to the laundry room I end up with six loads of dirty laundry, all because my thirteen year old son has two invisible laundry baskets in his room, he will stockpile dirty clothes in his room instead of easily dropping them off to the laundry room that is located directly two feet across from their bathroom door. My six year old Daughter, my Son and their Papa are what I call “Area Strippers”, whatever area either one happens to be standing at the moment of change is where the dirty clothes fall off.

So everyday I play “hunt the dirty laundry”. I am guilty of compulsively stalling the laundry production line due to my obsession with ironing their t-shirts. My partner and my Son constantly tell me they don’t need their t-shirts ironed but I don’t want them walking out with wrinkles and people thinking that they are victims of a neglectful mother.

Dishes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I remember back in the days when we started out with just a single set. That set of dinnerware was all you needed to feed your family. Until, that “one” guest came over and you didn’t have enough plates so someone ended up with a bowl to hold a steak. To avoid this shortage from happening again we went out and bought another set of dinnerware, and this became the beginning of the never ending sink full of dirty dishes. My partner “Papa” will use the same glass all day long for his water, but my kids will use a brand new cup each time they take a trip to the kitchen because heaven forbid the cups get mixed up and they get cooties. I have to wash all the dirty dishes just to cook dinner only to end up making dirty dishes again, not to mention all the many bowls and plates for snacks throughout the day, the many utensils it took to cut the cheese, spread the peanut butter, cut a meat package open, eat ice cream, etc. They will use every clean piece of dinnerware up until the cabinets and drawers are bare.

To add insult to injury; as I look at all the dirty plates in the sink, I wonder how all those plates got there when on the counter is a tall stack of useable PAPER PLATES! And then I look in the pantry and see a stack of useable PLASTIC CUPS!

I have to admit that my partner does offer to lend a hand at helping with house chores but because I’m afraid of a new line of pink clothing after he does laundry or a clean plate with last night’s dinner still stuck on it after being run through the dishwasher, I end up doing all the chores myself.

So………..when I walk into the kitchen and take the last clean bowl left in the pantry after doing numerous hours of cleaning and I pack two scoops of chocolate mint cookie ice cream into it, I would like that after opening up the utensil drawer there’d be a shinny clean spoon so that I don‘t have to retrieve a dirty spoon from the bottom of mixed decaying slushy fluid to enjoy 10 minutes of break from the monotony of house chores……but there is only a fork.

SCREW IT! ….I’m eating ice cream with a fork.


Rachel Cutrer