Slow Down...You Move Too Fast

I do believe that as we age, we’re less patient in getting things done. I know for a fact that I don’t meticulously wash every dish with the care and precision I would have 10 years ago. It’s not that I don’t love my dishes/glasses/coffee pot…maybe it’s just that I consider it a huge inconvenience (in this age of dishwashers that can evidently sense how dirty your dishes are and can then make suggestions for next night’s meal that will be “lower in cholesterol and will make clean-up a breeze!”) that I have to hand wash anything at all. I mean...seriously. I stopped buying paper cups in an effort to do something (anything!) good for the environment and instead invested in some nice-looking, kid-friendly (read: hard-to-break-plastic) glasses:


Between the boys and their friends, we must go through 20 glasses a day…don’t ask me how. Problem is that you can’t put these babies in the dishwasher. I mean you CAN, if you don’t mind losing any identifiable colors it may have come with (the glass on the left used to have bright green coconut trees etched on it) and can live with the hairline cracks in the plastic, which will eventually leak and dribble onto your clothing, making you look like you’ve lost control of most of your bodily functions:


So, now I’ve got to wash 20 glasses a day…by hand. Then, there’s my Pier One wine glasses:

I adore these glasses…really…but, do you see how there’s practically no yellow color left on the stem? Funny…it was all yellow when I bought them. I vaguely remember a teeny sticker on the bottom proclaiming “hand wash only”, but I took that as more of a suggestion than a warning. Evidently, the color is either “baked onto” the glass, or maybe it’s hot-glued on, for all I know. What I’m starting to realize is that the reason they put a “Hand Wash Only” sticker on there is because there’s not enough room for the one that should say: “Consider yourself warned! This product is made to look expensive (hence the hefty price tag) but is in actuality made using the cheapest methods we could find, thereby offering us the largest possible profit margin. What does this mean for you, naive consumer? We’ll tell you to “hand wash” this item, in a thinly veiled attempt to make this product sound expensive…or allude to the fact that it could be “hand made”...and we figure for what you’re paying for it, we’re golden. And even if you’re not buying it, we’ll cover our butts by throwing a sticker in the darkest corner on the bottom that will indemnify us from any possible responsibility when these delicate colors begin to chip, fade or run into your next glass of wine.” “P.S.: Maybe if you didn’t drink so much, this wouldn’t be happening in the first place, so maybe some of the blame is technically yours anyway, you lush.”

(See? WAY too much to fit on a sticker.)

I figure with the amount of water I’m using to hand wash all these “drinking vessels”, I could probably have filled up my pool a few times over.

I additionally figure the environment’s gonna have to survive without my help. I can just see the memo now:

To: Kathryn
From: The Environment
Re: Your halfhearted effort to save me from extinction

It’s come to my attention that you’re making some vague, misguided effort to do something good for me.

That’s okay…really. I’m thinking of suggesting that they revisit that whole “cow-fart as alternative to car fuel” thing….maybe we were too quick to discount that one.

Meanwhile, just keep putting those empty soda cans, seltzer and wine bottles out to be recycled on Tuesdays. That’s enough for now. Oh, and you can stop wondering if global warming is a real thing….I was just messing with you.

So remember: Recycle, Reuse and Refrain from Operating Heavy Machinery after partaking in Refreshments alcoholic in nature. As always, thank you for your support. I know your heart's in the right place. We'll take it from here...stop trying to help....seriously.