Washing the dishes

Recently our dishwasher stopped working.  My wife called up Sears, but they said it would take two weeks to get someone out to look at it.  So we bought a drying rack at Target and I took on the task of washing the dishes.

I started with the stuff that had built up in the sink, and got a few items out of the unfinished load from the washer.  Hot soapy water in the smaller sink, rinse in the larger one.  My wife wound up putting the dishes away after they dried.  So that's how it went  - wash the new stuff and get a few more out of the washer until it was empty.  I wound up washing the dishes, by hand, several times over the course of two weeks.

And now, I miss it.  Isn't that odd?  I mean, I like the idea of loading everything into the machine, push the button and come back later.  Done.  But there was something about doing the work myself - the slowness, the quiet.  At one point, I was going to start the dishes but the wife and girl were in the room, squabbling and making noise - I shooed them out before I started.  It became 'my time'.  The smallness of the task - scrub the plate, put it in the sink; rinse them all; fit them in the rack - allowed me time to think.  It was almost better than lying down and thinking, one of my favorite activities.  Freer, maybe.

I have noticed in the past that I tend to think better when my hands are doing something.  Often, in a tedious meeting, I will start messing with something: a rubber band, my pen, my phone.  It seems to help me to focus better.  I don't know, but it seems like this might be an INTP thing.  Or maybe just a human thing.  Or maybe just me.

I would not have thought that I would enjoy washing the dishes.  I have done it in the past, as a chore.  This time was different though.  Chop wood, carry water.