Good ol' kitchen patrol, immortalized in the Army as KP duty. I've been on KP all my life. As a kid, my mother decided that washing dishes would be appropriate punishment for my misdeeds. Sometimes, constant miscreant that I was, I built up weeks of dish washing duty. I could only hope that my sister would do something to tick my mother off enough so that she'd be ordered to relieve me.



This was but a small part of my domestic training, preparation for a lifetime of household drudgery. When I started working as a bagboy in high school, I had to wear a clean white shirt each day. So I was forced to learn how to iron. It wasn't long before I recognized the benefits of polyester mixed with cotton.

Somewhere along the line I became a better-than-average (for a guy!) cook. A good thing it was, too, since these days, as the only member of the family not working every day, I have dinner ready when my wife and daughter arrive home. Tonight's meal, by the way, will be stuffed salmon.

Paper plates, I have long since recognized, are the most important invention since the wheel. Clean up after dinner is bad enough with the pots and pans, the glasses and silverware, etc. But for holidays, when we use real dishes (not being totally crass), I can get a little overwhelmed with the KP duty. So lately I have drafted Huxley, our obliging dachshund, to assist.




{"KP duty ain't too bad," says Huxley.}
This way, we can get the dishes done much faster and have more time to visit with family, not to mention save on water. Pets should be made to earn their keep too, don't you agree?

Comments: