The Wet Badge of Courage

There seems to be a war brewing on the Drying Rack front. To bring readers up to date on the escalating tensions:

First, there was a big drying rack taking up the majority of our very limited counter space. It ended up becoming a place to put your dishes instead of back where they go. I grew up in a strictly no-drying-rack household for this very reason.

It reached a point where I ousted the drying rack from this contested territory and claimed it for cutting boards and food prep. Food is prepared on the counters. Dishes stay in the cupboards.

For a while we had normalized diplomatic relations under this uneasy truce, but lately the dishes have begun encroaching on the territory again, in strict violation of our treaty.

It began in strange ways: Wet spatulas and ladles left in, around, and on top of my fruit bowl to dry, even though the container they live in is approximately 24 inches away from the fruit bowl. And what's more, spoons, crucially, are not fruit. Then the dishes became bolder. A box greater on top of the delicate avocados. Cups, knives, blender parts, left clean and dry next to the sink.

Tensions reached a boiling point this morning as the dishes started pursuing expansionary policies, boots on the ground. Two pots. Knives. Cutting board. Even several tea bags--food mercenaries joining the side of dishes. A rusted cast iron pan left on the stovetop, as if to send a message. This aggression would not stand. I put every single dish away back into the cupboards where they belong, as agreed to in the treaty. Rained chemicals down onto the battlefield until there was no trace of their presence, scorched earth style. Though I did strike up a deal with the cast iron skillet to give it some oil.

Now, in the late afternoon, it looks like the dishes have begun again but have fallen back to a safer position: the sink. So it's trench warfare they're after.