That sinking feeling: gross is different than messy

I used to tell people I was only on Facebook to keep track of my kids. While that's still true to some extent — with so many other social media sites, I wouldn't even have time to try to keep up if I wanted to – there is still every now and then something on Facebook that makes you appreciate it despite its overall basically soulless and trivial nature.

What brings this up is a post someone made recently that said, roughly: “My husband may not be the handsomest or funniest or make the most money, but I always wake up with a clean sink and that's good enough for me.”

Let me tell you my lovely wife could have written that because it fits me to a T.

When I was small, my dear departed mom did most of the cooking, until my father discovered his inner “Molto Mario” and took over. Regardless of who was cooking, they both knew the same two things: one, if you clean while you cook you have a lot less to do later, and two, you never go to bed with a dirty sink.

They say kids rarely listen to what you say but always watch what you do and it must have rubbed off on me because I turned out the same way.

I only had a bachelor pad for a little while, and, while I had one, I did all the things bachelors like to do and then some; I learned pretty quickly that, while a hangover was bad, a hangover plus a dirty sink was exponentially worse. I get a headache just thinking about it.

Not that I was then or even now am that great of a cook, but I can follow a recipe, and it's just so much easier to clean as you go like my parents showed me. Combine that with cleaning the sink before bed and waking up to a fresh, clean kitchen and you’re good to go for sure.

I can't say a clean sink makes every day a good day, but I know waking up with a sink full of dirty dishes with stuck, crusted on food is never how I want to start my day.

Truly I never saw dirty sinks until I got out into the world — it was shocking in many ways. When you grow up in a clean house and then see what a dirty place looks like, it's a really rude awakening. I'm so glad I never had to live like that.

Whenever I'd stay over with friends, I'd always do the sink for them. Cleaning up others’ messes was not my idea of fun — I guess that's why I never stayed over with anyone all that often — but I just couldn't stand a dirty sink. What a bummer. How can you relax and have a good time with that kind of a mess around?

My wife and I played landlord for a number of years. While it's a great move financially, there are too many negative aspects for us to ever want to do it again.

Often I'd have to pay a visit to a tenant to fix one thing or another, and way more often than not I'd find myself in a kitchen with a full stack of crusted-on dirty dishes and an open, overflowing garbage pail. When I saw that, I couldn't wait to get out of there, because I'm not used to living like that and I never want to be.

The dirty sink was bad enough, but the overflowing garbage pail always killed me. How hard is it to go to a store and find a nice kitchen garbage pail with some kind of a lid? Why would you choose one without a lid, or choose not to use the lid?

I may be missing something but to be staring at empty Chinese food containers, chicken bones, watermelon rinds, and who knows what else all day — I just can't imagine it. Don't think I'm a germ-phobe or even a neat freak, because I'm surely not.

I have my stacks of unread reading material, all kinds of junk in my garage and basement, and my over-stuffed drawers and whatnot need to be seriously gone through, to put it mildly. I simply draw the line at dirty sinks, open garbage pails, and real filth like that. There's messy and then there's gross and that's just the way it is.

When I cook a nice meal, I like to get it such that, when we finally sit down to eat, all that's left to clean are the dishes, glasses, and utensils we are using to eat with. That's not always easy to do.

Roasting pans stay hot for a while and, depending on the number of dishes you serve, there may be a lot of things to clean. Still, I'm often able to accomplish this if I'm left alone and “get in the zone” when I cook. This means ignoring phone calls and other distractions and just keeping to the task at hand.

I even refuse help in the kitchen when I'm really going to town, because another body just gets in the way. So I'll let my wife do the entertaining while I finish up the meal, for example. Works for me.

On special occasions, like anniversaries and birthdays, I might take my wife to a fancy restaurant. What should be a very nice experience dampens quickly when you spend lots of money getting wined and dined and then come home to a sink full of dirty dishes that the kids left.

So, while the stripe on the credit card is still warm, I'm at the sink cleaning up a mess I had nothing to do with (well I did have the kids, haha). That's always a bummer. Wait until they have their own sinks to clean.

I say I'm not germ-phobic yet I must admit I rate restaurants on the cleanliness of their bathrooms. The thing is, you have to give them some leeway, because all it takes is one gross inconsiderate slob to ruin a bathroom; we all know that. Still, if a bathroom is nice and tidy, you figure the kitchen is too and that's a good thing.

I know one thing — when I go to a restaurant where there's a tropical fish tank in the waiting area, if the water is so dark you can barely see the fish, I turn right around and walk out. I mean, if you let your fish tank go what else do you let go, jeez.

I may not be the perfect husband — I'm far from it, in fact —but at least my sink is always clean, and that's something.