Dishes.

I've come to the opinion that in the world, there are some people who always clean up, and some people who never clean up. By which I mean to say there aren't a whole lot of middle-grounders: people who sometimes clean up and sometimes leave a mess. And I have proof of this. Please read on.

In this apartment that I live in, there are four people (including me), one bathroom, and one kitchen. The kitchen includes a sink, a fridge, and a garbage can. Now, in my four weeks of residence in this particular apartment, there has never been a time when I've entered one of the two common areas (kitchen or bathroom. You remember.) and NOT had some sort of mess to clean up before I can go about my business. If I'm showering, someone else has left hair in the drain. If I'm cooking, someone (or someones) has used the pots and pans and failed to clean them afterward, or they've used the stove and left splattered oil everywhere.

The one that gets me the most is when the sink is full of dishes because WE HAVE A DISHWASHER. Let me walk you through this process:

1. Finish eating.
2. Proceed to sink.
3. Rinse dish.
4. Place it in dishwasher.
5. FORGET ABOUT IT and move on with your daily life.

In an ideal world, the above five steps take place, and then at some point down the line, someone will put in the last dish that will conceivably fit. Let's call this person "Specimen 1". THEN, because this is, after all, an ideal world, Specimen 1 will thoughtfully run the dishwasher and go about their day. Then, someone else in this perfect little world -- let's call them "Specimen 2" -- will open the dishwasher and see -- ah! marvel of marvels! -- someone has run the dishwasher! Perhaps I will take five to ten minutes out of my day to UNLOAD the dishwasher! Specimen 2 will then thoughtfully unload the dishwasher, knowing that her friends, Specimens 1, 3, and 4, will appreciate her gesture and no doubt reciprocate somewhere down the line. Perhaps next time it will be Specimen 3 who notices that the dishwasher is full and decides to run it, and Specimen 4 who thoughtfully unloads it. It doesn't really matter who it is, because in this magical, mysterious world, all Specimens are equally selfless and conscientious, and everyone coexists peacefully.

Except in the world that I live in, Specimens 1-4 have all mysteriously been played by me. None of my fellow Specimens have even been completing the five-step process I laid out above. They can invariably make it through the first two steps, but 3-5 seem to really stump them.

To be fair, I'm sure that people do things I don't know about, but it's clear to me that SOME people are slacking, because logic tells me I shouldn't encounter a full sink AND a full dishwasher when I go to make a sandwich.

So, to return to my initial hypothesis: there are those who always clean up, and those who never clean up. This is a true statement, and here's why. Members of the "always" group, like myself, are typically pretty anal-retentive. When I enter a room and find it messy, I have a physical reaction. (Oddly, this only applies to shared spaces. My room can be a complete disaster and while it bothers me, I don't have that visceral reaction that I get in shared spaces. I think it's because I feel I have a responsibility -- a shared responsibility, with all the other members of the space -- to keep that area clean, because it's a common area.) To return to what I was saying, when I see a common area that's messy, I have an impulse to clean it up. Now. I can put off that impulse in the hopes that someone else will do it, but it's really only a matter of time before I surrender to it and find myself in the kitchen scrubbing out someone else's cookie sheets and digging someone else's soggy Chinese food out of the drain.

And herein lies the problem. Imagine that Specimen A is an always-cleaner, and Specimen B is a never-cleaner. Every day, Specimen B leaves one dish in the sink. Let's imagine this scenario from both angles:

SPECIMEN A:
I eat one meal a day at home. After I finish, I rinse the dish and put it in the dishwasher. When I get home, there is a dish that is not mine in the sink. I suspect it was left there by my less-dilligent (but very friendly) roommate, Specimen B. I will leave it there for a day to see if she cleans up after herself.

The next day there are two plates in the sink. I rinse mine and put it in the dishwasher. I will wait a day to see what happens to Specimen B's dishes.

On the third day, there are three dishes in the sink. This bothers me and makes it difficult to rinse my own dish, so I rinse them and put them in the dishwasher. This process repeats until the dishwasher is full and I run it.

SPECIMEN B
I eat one meal a day at home. When I've finished, I leave my dish in the sink. This is a good place for dishes, because every three days, they clean themselves! My life is good and nice. I like my roommate, Specimen A, except when she is frustrated and I don't know why.

Why would either of these people change what they're doing? I like things clean, so I try to keep them that way, and as much as I'll grumble and gripe about it, if people leave dishes in the sink for long enough, yes, I will do them. I won't like it, but they will be done, because I can't really operate if they're not.

So...I guess the bottom line here, is I have a sickness. It's not contagious and it's really convenient to those around me. Not so convenient to me, but I'll accept it.

It's a sickness of the anus and it's called "anal-retentivity". I encourage you to catch it. For my own sake.