Surreal Dishwashing

My CH has been feeling under the weather as of late and part of that has been a sore throat. When you're a teacher and your work is talking all day, this is a big problem. It's rather like a lumberjack with a pulled arm muscle. In order to soothe his raw throat last night after an extra long day at work, he picked up a pint of Haagen Dazs Belgian chocolate chip ice cream. That's the sort of thing that comforts the spirit as well as the throat.

Since Haagen Dazs is premium ice cream at a premium price, they ask if you'd like dry ice with that at each purchase. Considering the heat and humidity, my CH took them up on their offer and his ice cream arrived in a petrified state.

Every time he gets Haagen Dazs (which actually is not very often), I discard the bag and toss the dry ice into the sink. While the logical part of my brain knows that the "ice" is "dry" and isn't going to melt into the bag if I just leave it there to dissipate, that bit of cerebral material sometimes grows weary and has to have a lie down and the part that draws simple-minded connections takes over. This part of my mind tells me: "Ice melt!" "Melted ice make water!" "Water go in sink!" So, at 10:30 in the evening when my poor unwell CH comes home and I am in a hurry to cram one more thing into the freezer and get dinner done, I listen to the part of my brain which was responsible for making logical connections when I was 5 years old.

After dinner is done, I have to hustle and get the dishes done so we can go to bed as early as possible. Note that though I recognize that dirty dishes can be left in the sink overnight on an intellectual level, I utterly reject the concept on an emotional one. Besides, in the summer leaving dirty dishes around is an engraved invitation for roaches and I have to make sure that any that get into my apartment understand they are breaking and entering and will suffer dire consequences.

If you add hot water to 4 shards of dry ice, there are consequences. As I'm sitting there (yes, I sit on a stool to wash dishes as the height of the sink seems designed for people who never grow taller than 4 feet), I'm taken back to my days of attending Kiss concerts and seeing mist rolling around the stage or watching old, cheesy horror movies with graveyard scenes that are covered with a layer of fog to hide the fact that they are cheap sets and not actual graveyards.

Performing such a mundane daily task in a sea of continuously generating mist was quite the surreal experience. Next time, I'm hoping the dumber part of my brain makes a connection with the "dry" in "dry ice" and "no water".