Just do it...

OK, now this is beyond a joke. I've been monitoring a pile of dishes in the sink for a while now. I haven't mentioned them before, because there have been other fiascos of a more pressing nature to deal with.

About three weeks ago The Flatmate mentioned that she was going to do the dishes. Due to the subtle nature of cohabitation with someone you passionately hate, but have not yet disclosed said hatred to, combined with the more normal facade required of 2 cohabitees, I did nothing more than grunt noncomittally. You see, to have done anything else would have been wrong.

This is the way I see it. She says that not because she intends to do the dishes. Quite the reverse. Nobody ever intends to do the dishes. For example:

Bob: "Hello Jane, what are you doing this weekend?"

Jane: "Oh, Hi Bob. I intend to do the dishes."

No. It simply is not something that is ever given any more importance in a person's life than some vague intention in the future of cutting down on carbs, or maybe joining a gym, or recycling more, or donating to charity, or changing your old postal address, or registering to vote, or writing a will.

The Flatmate merely says this because she is aware that I am aware of the swaying tower of filth in my kitchen, and by doing so she admits partial responsibility therefore and attaches thereto a benign quasi-promise so that I do not have to worry about it, because after she has amended the codicil referring to the executor and calculated what BMI she should have she might get around to the dishes, that is if she doesn't get distracted by the pressing desire to call aunt Gracie in the Upper Limpopo, who she hasn't spoken to in simply ages. She just doesn't want any trouble, now move along, preferably out of the kitchen.

So, for me to do anything other than grunt would be to pass some form of moral judgement on her ranking of this task in the list of shit to do. And for cohabitees this can involve a distribution of karma.

Now she knows, and I know, that the reasonable period of time for her to carry out this quasi-promise is elastic. But it must be her that does the dishes. She has ownership of that task. For me to do them would involve trespassing upon her personal list of shit-to do.

It would be like saying: "You fat bitch, join a fucking gym. How can you go out in public like that? Look at you! And for Christ's sake donate to charity, learn to draw with charcoal and read more you degenerate philistine. And that fucking Aunt of yours called again. In tears. You bitch!"

And so; I restrain myself.

And so does she.

Today's reason I hate my flatmate: she is a degenerate philistine who cannot draw with charcoal and would rather drink so much vodka that she is late to work too many times in one week, losing yet another job, blaming some malignant employer for sacking her arse, spending all her remaining money on cigarettes and expensive face cream instead of rent and NOT DOING THE DISHES LIKE SHE SAID SHE WOULD!!!