doing the dishes

Peggy’s prompt----doing the dishes---15min

You’re doing the dishes like you always do. Far be it for anyone else in this household to do dishes. No, it might mess up their nails, or interfere with basketball practice, or from the Mister, it’s squaw work, and he’s a warrior. I’d like to just one time see him do anything that smacks of being a warrior. But anyhow, you’re doing the dishes, and of course, your mind wanders. I mean, it has to wander, right? Even Buddhist monks must have a hell of a time staying in the present while they’re doing dishes, don’t you think? All that baloney about making each simple thing that you do an opportunity for meditation, for sacred joy. These are people who haven’t washed dishes in a long time. But anyhow, you’re doing the dishes and your mind wanders to what if---what if you hadn’t got married before you finished college, which means you wouldn’t have gotten pregnant while you were IN college. What if you had actually gotten that teaching degree and were right now a fifth grade teacher with ten years of experience under her belt. And no husband and no kids. Just a nice little downtown apartment over a deli, and a cute little previously-owned Mustang convertible, and a closet full of clothes and shoes, and a refrigerator full of healthy greens and yellows and reds and purples, all bought at the farmer’s market on Saturday morning. Wow. Of course, there’s always the chance that you’d be a fifth grade teacher with ten years of experience under her belt and a husband and two kids and a mortgage and cabinets full of snacks and pizza makings, and a refrigerator full of soft drinks and beer, plus a laundry room filled with smelly dirty clothes. Sigh. Tell you what. It’s my what if. I’m going with the nice little downtown apartment, the cute little convertible, and all the rest. Why mess up dish-washing with reality.