Today some people are going to come over and eat. I'm going to start having a turn at washing the dishes now. This should help motivate me out of Dads house. Dishes are something I find unpleasant, I associate them with my stay at Moms house. There was a dishwashing schedule, with me, my little brother, and my older sister taking turns cleaning up after dinner (wash the pots and pans, clean the counters, put everything away, clear and load dishwasher, etc). The punishment for not doing the dishes on your night was having to do them for the next three nights (i.e. until your next turn), making it so that the other two people didn't have to do it on their nights. Well, a lot of the time things would happen like someone wouldn't do the dishes, so I assumed they were doing it on my night. So I didn't do them. So the person after me didn't.The first person wouldn't admit to not doing the dishes, and claimed that since I didn't do them, I had to do them on their night. This would go on for a week or so, the kitchen getting really gross and mom going out to eat dinner (sometimes taking my little brother, for some reason, and not me). Finally, Mom would say that it was my fault, and that since I ALSO didn't do the dishes that subsequent week, I had to do it for 21 days afterwards. Other things that happened: People hiding pots and pans so they wouldn't have to wash them on their night, taking them out of hiding on the next person's night ("Where'd this stew pot come from? We ate out tonight."). People not clearing the dishwasher when it was clean, instead adding maybe 2 glasses and washing the whole thing again, so the next person would have to clear it (AND have to deal with all the dishes the first guy hid because they didn't fit in the nearly full dishwasher). Since I tried to do a good job (up until the end there), my brother and sister would assume that any crap they pulled would be dealt with on my night. My mom also knew this, and when she got sick of dealing with one of their jobs, she'd just make me do the kitchen. (It would get pretty gross after 6 days of one of them doing it).

Once every year or two, my oldest sister would come home from UC Berkeley and get mad at us all for the way we were handling things. "Who cares whose night it is, if it needs doing, doing it!" So, she would do the dishes pretty much every night she was back. Of course, she had escaped the house by then, and regained a normal perspective on the world again. It's not fun, living with someone like my mom. I can't hate her because, well, she is my mom and would throw herself in front a speeding train for me or my siblings. Still. One day soon before I moved out we were having an argument, and I asked her "Do you think you are more important than God?" (she was telling me how she was more important than anything else, so I should listen to her instead of, oh, experienced experts on a topic) So she said, "Yes! I am above GOD to you, don't you forget it!" I shut up then, because it was pretty clear where someone's mind had gone. I guess she considered it a major point on her part, because from time to time she would bring it up afterward, like it was a brilliant argument, "Remember, I am above God!"