When Nathan is at home, he is known as the Supreme Reigning King of Dishwasher Loading. Nathan is a very logical, organized person (unlike his somewhat scatterbrained Mom) and he has come up with the most efficient way to load a dishwasher that has ever been known to mankind.
In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he has the loading of the dishwasher down to a precise science and may even start traveling the country holding seminars on the subject.
Unfortunately, when I had my back momentarily turned, Nathan secretly and surreptitiously trained his sister in The Reigning King's Methodology of Dishwasher Loading; as a result, she will barely even let me near the machine just because I sorta toss things into the dishwasher in a helter skelter, willy nilly manner. It seems that my tossing skills do not even come close to measuring up to the standards of the Supreme Reigning King and Queen.
But hey. I'm good with that. My kids want to load the dishwasher? I'll let them load the dishwasher. And on the occasional occasions when I do it, they just have to grit their royal little teeth as they witness the dastardly dishwasher chaos that I create.
They're good like that.
And on the further subject of Nathan and kitchen organization:
Back when we had our microwave on the counter instead of over the stove, Nathan always asked if Sarah and I would put the butter lid on the microwave when we were setting the table. That way, when he was cleaning the kitchen later, he wouldn't have to dig through stacks of stuff everywhere in order to find the lid and replace it on the official butter container.
I got pretty well trained in regard. Placing the butter lid on the microwave was something my non logical, non-reigning Queen of Dishwasher Loading could handle without too much brain sprain, brain pain or brain drain.
And then? And then we got rid of that microwave.
As a result, we had to re-vamp our Efficient Butter Lid Placing Procedure. Sarah and I got together for a Very Important Meeting about the subject and decided that, even though the microwave was gone, the best plan of action would be to continue to place the butter lid on the counter where the microwave used to be.
(Don't you wish you lived at our house? The excitement level often times ratchets up to these sorts of incredible heights.)
That plan worked out pretty well and things went along rather swimmingly. Until last week.
Last week, Sarah and I were clearing the table (of course, she was the one loading the dishwasher) when it occurred to us that the lid to the butter was nowhere to be seen.
We looked at the Official Butter Lid Spot on the counter. The Lid was not there.
We rummaged beneath and behind the piles of plates and used Saran Wrap. The Lid was not there.
We were stumped. We were stymied. We were borderline bamboozled.
Finally, a little light went off in my (little) brain and I said, "I know! Let me look in the fridge and see if the butter lid is in there!"
I opened the door and voila'! Perched forlornly all by itself on a shelf was The Lid. A lid without a partner. A lid bereft of the butter dish it should have been permanently paired with.
Do you want to know what was worse than finding the lonely lid in the fridge?
It was the fact that I even thought to look in the fridge for the lid at all.
Scary.
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