More Than Just a Spoon

Tom was washing dishes this morning.

I’ll wait and let that sink in.

My husband routinely washes the breakfast and lunch dishes while I usually do the dinner dishes.

Unfortunately for him, there were a bunch of dishes dirtied last night after I’d already done the dinner dishes.

So there he was, washing a sink full of dishes as I finished getting ready to leave for work.

I heard him grumble and growl about something but didn’t ask what was wrong.

Finally, he called out, “Who took the strainer from the sink with the garbage disposal?”

I replied cheerfully, “Well, since you and I are the only ones in this house who wash dishes, we can safely assume that if you didn’t move the strainer, I did.”

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“The water wouldn’t drain out of that sink last night. I moved it so it would drain. I obviously forgot to put it back.”

“Well, a spoon fell into the disposal while the strainer was out. But it was just one of the big ones, we don’t actually need all of those.”

I rolled my eyes and refused to be offended by his obnoxious tone.

Mistakes happen. Spoons fall into the garbage disposal.

When I didn’t respond, he continued, “You know, when the water won’t drain for me, I just turn on the garbage disposal and that sucks the water right down. Which is what I was doing when I heard the spoon get mauled.”

I smiled and replied, “Good to know. I’ll try that next time.”

He threw the spoon away and went back to his dishes.

I went back to whatever it was I was doing at 7:20 this morning. Somehow, it felt good to refuse to rise to bait.

And the kiss he gave me goodbye was that much better because he’d had his say and I’d listened without getting insulted and all was well.

I can’t promise that tomorrow will go nearly this smoothly. But I’m betting there won’t be a mutilated spoon involved.