An ode to that one housemate who never does the washing up

Your apparent inability to carry out the most basic of tasks such as washing the fuck up is slightly baffling. But it’s okay, we at the Tab are trying to understand. Dirty plates and cups and pots and pans and cutlery and chopping boards and bowls with three day old cereal cemented onto them are complex and mysterious animals. They are a mystery wrapped in a riddle and found in mysterious, stinking, mould growing piles stacked around your house. You’ve got soap and scourers and sponges to worry about on top of all of this, and sometimes, it can all get to be a bit much.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you navigate the treacherous minefield that is washing up. We’ll decode all of those weird words your housemates keep using like “dishwasher”, and “stop leaving your fucking dishes out”, and “the black mould spores are making me cough up blood, Jeremy you twat”, and we’ll even help you figure it out how to wash up, too. You’ll be one step closer to a functioning adult human in no time. Well done you.

Your washing up is probably somewhere in the vicinity of the sink. The sink is a small, metal, watery hole in your kitchen. It’s probably very close to where you’ve been leaving all of your shit, namely all of those empty cups of coffee and (usually) everyone else’s utensils that you’ve “borrowed” and not washed up.

If you tend to leave them in the living room or even under your bed like some sort of hoarder off of daytime telly, then you may have to search for them. We all know you can see them you lying coward. We can SMELL them, for Christ’s sake.

This is where it gets complex. Once you’ve successfully managed to get your shit together, and plates into the sink you need to find:
– a sponge (squishy and moist, you may have seen them before)
– soap (bubbly and colourful, don’t drink)
– your FUCKING dishes

Once you have all the ingredients, combine them to do the washing up. Please. “Doing the washing up” is an assortment of crockery, cutlery and utensils that have actually been fucking cleaned and are now ready to be reused. It’s not entirely different from how they look before you use them. Leave your dishes in the giant toast rack that everyone in your house has been insisting on calling a “drying rack”, and relax. Congratulations, you’ve just washed up. Crack open a cold one to celebrate with the lads. You are a juggernaut of adulthood, and you deserve a break.

All that’s left to do now is to drop a message into your housemates’ Whatsapp group to say that you FINALLY WASHED UP, and even did some of their’s whilst you were at it. Don’t forget to mention that you would appreciate it if “we could all try really hard to keep the sink area tidier from now on”, and that someone needs to buy a new bottle of Fairy Liquid.