Suzie’s House 211: That’s My Dirty Dish!

Right after dinner, Ben carried the serving dishes into the kitchen and started washing.

“Mom? How many points did you say doing dishes is worth?”

“Five, but you have to do the hand wash too.” She came in with the dish of macaroni and tuna.

“Ok.” He could do hand wash. He thought. He’d always had help before, but he knew the basics. He opened the dishwasher to find it half full of dirties and started the water running to scrape, then turned to take a stack of plates from Vin.

“Hey!” Gene stood in the doorway, the bowl of string beans in his hand. “That’s MY job!”

“I didn’t hear you call dibs,” Ben said.

“Calm down.” Mom scraped leftovers into storage containers. “There are plenty of jobs for the both of you.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben and Gene both said, both not believing her.

“If you’ve got another one I could do right now, then it’s ok with him doing the dishes,” Gene said.

“Oh. Right now?” Mom got all wrinkly-browed and frowny. “Um…. well….”

“See?!” Gene threw one hand in the air like he was mad instead of just really wanted to do this. “See, this is why I’ve got to grab every chore I can.”

“That’s not fair! I need the money too.” Ben moved in front of the sink, guarding it like a hockey goalie.

“No, seriously, there’s plenty of work for everyone. I know. How about you clean the grill.”

Vin whistled like he was impressed. “That’s quite a job. It’ll take about an hour, I’d say.” He should know since he was always the one to use it.

“Since you never clean it,” Mom said, glaring at him. Vin didn’t seem to mind. “All right. How about ten points, and an extra five for sweeping the patio.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.” Gene’s eyes gleamed.

Mom and Gene went out with cleaning supplies.

Ben kind of felt like he’d got ripped off. Would he have got such a big job if he’d asked? But still, dishes were worth five, and that was good. He needed three hundred total to get a cheap laptop, and five was that much closer. Besides, dishes might be as much as he could handle right now.

He felt kind of prickly on his back, and glanced to see if maybe Gene had come back to glare at him. Instead, he saw Vin leaning against the counter and grinning.

“I never thought I’d see the day that two teenage boys would fight for the privilege of doing chores.”

“You know why.”

“Yes, we all know you are trying to earn a computer and he’s trying to earn an electric guitar. Still, you gotta admit it looks funny.” Still grinning, he held out an apron.

And Ben took it.

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