Cementing Dishes

Tis the season to start spending boo hoo hoo hoo hoo, hoo hoo hoo hoo.

No wonder we need all those Christmas cookies and candies. After all the gift buying we do there is a desperate need of comfort foods.

Maybe that is why I put off Christmas gift shopping until I have started the baking.

Yet here I am still trying to get my kitchen cleaned after the busy spring, summer and fall. Hmm, my Santa's list this year will include a maid. One who is fully paid for the next five years.

Grandma's way was to do spring cleaning. However with only two guys in the house who get busy working and playing outside during nice weather, the kitchen and the rest of the house falls into dumpiness. Now compound that with a son who seems to believe if he hides dirty dishes they will just disappear and you have major cleaning to do.

There were some boxes in a corner of my kitchen. Why? I haven't a clue... Thought maybe the son had them there for a reason, so I never bothered with them. But as I decided to get busy with a good cleaning I figured they needed moved.

I picked up the boxes and found they were empty. But under the stack of boxes I found a treasure. A stack of dishes with lord knows what cemented to them and even cementing some together. How they didn't stink or even reek is completely beyond my scope of understanding.

I attempted to wash the plates and bowls. Ha ha. Needed a jackhammer to loosen the filth. I spoke a few words of praise under my breath to my son who was at work as I attempted to use a butter knife and a fork to loosen the debris. No luck. I tried a putty knife. I finally set them aside and washed what I could. Filled the sink with hot soapy water and left them to soak over night. That worked.

When the son got home from work that day I found out that someone I haven't heard of for quite a while has moved back in and no one told me.

When I asked him about that stack of nastiness he said it wasn't him. So thereby I have to conclude that Not Me has once again graced my home with his return.

Now that's not all bad. I do have a huge score to settle with Not Me... Not Me has haunted my household for many years while my kids were growing. Seriously, he moved in right after they learned to talk and then went on vacation for a while after my daughter got married and move out. But I see his little butt is back. I want to catch him. And I may be locked in a jail cell for what I intend to do to him.

Thanks to an unruly messed up back, the cleaning takes me longer than it should. I can only work in spurts until the pain gets to much and then have to vegetate on the couch or laying down on the bed until it lets up and I can get back to the cleaning. But it is finally about finished.

Then let the cookie baking begin! Let the wonderful aromas fill my sniffer! Let the smells and tastes of Christmas's past awaken the joy of yet another wonderful Christmas and spur me on to shopping!

Just the thoughts of the twinkles in the eyes of the grandkids as they open gifts gives me warm fuzzy feelings. Brings back memories of my kids on Christmas morning. Brings back fond memories of Christmas long ago when I was a kid being spoiled by my grand parents.

But looking back now on that stack of dishes. I sure wish I had thought before to wrap them up for the son...