EATING ICE CREAM WITH A FORK

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Rachel Cutrer-Johnson says she has always had a passion for the arts and when not painting, or hacking wood with a saw, she writes. She has been writing  fiction, essays, and poetry since she was ten. This is her first blog for us.
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EATING ICE CREAM WITH A FORK

By: Rachel Cutrer


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

Wait. “Backload” would be the wrong term to use, because that’s assuming that laundry isn’t done every day or that dishes aren’t done every day, 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 stockpiles dirty clothes in his room instead of easily dropping them off to the laundry room. It is located two feet across from his 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 in at the moment is where the dirty clothes fall off.

So every day, I play the game of 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 having people think they are victims of a neglectful mother.

              Dishes! I remember the days when we started out with just a single set. That set of dinnerware was all we needed for family mealtime, until, that “one” guest came over and we didn’t have enough plates. Someone ended up with a bowl to hold a steak. To avoid this shortage from happening again, we purchased another set of dinnerware. 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 new cup each time they take a trip to the kitchen. Heaven forbid the cups get mixed up and they get cooties. I wash all the dirty dishes just to cook dinner only to end up making dirty dishes again. This doesn’t include all the bowls and plates for snacks throughout the day, the utensils it took to cut the cheese, spread the peanut butter, cut a meat package open, or eat ice cream, They will use every clean piece of dinnerware until the cabinets and drawers are bare.

As I look at all the dirty plates in the sink, I wonder how all those plates got there, when there is a tall stack of useable paper plates on the counter! And then I open the pantry and see a stack of plastic cups!

Although, I end up doing all the household chores, I have to admit that my partner does offer to lend a helping hand. It’s not his fault I’m afraid of a new line of pink clothing after he does laundry or a plate with last night’s dinner still stuck on it after being run through the dishwasher.

After doing hours of cleaning, I walk into the kitchen. Taking the last clean bowl left in the pantry, I pack two scoops of chocolate mint cookie ice cream into it. Opening the utensil drawer, I look for a shiny, clean spoon. I don’t want to retrieve a  spoon from the bottom of a sink full of old dirty water so that I can enjoy a ten minute break from the monotony of household chores. But there is only a fork.

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