The Wife asks the question as she bolts for the door. It's Girls Night Out - the weekly Bible Study at the Coffee House.
"Uh-huh."
A reflexive answer, made without thought or intelligence, from years of husband-hood.
She comes back three hours later. TechnoBoy is already in bed, I'm asleep in the Chair and the kitchen counter has yet to see human hands.
"Hey, you said you'd do the dishes!"
So THAT was the sentence that preceded the automated response.
Nuts.
I coulda had TechnoBoy do 'em.
"I'll do 'em in the morning. Before breakfast. Promise."
So here it is, half-past dark, and I'm in the kitchen, prepping the dishes for a bath.
I would use the dishwasher but he's still sleeping.
I start running a sinkful of hot water.
Grabbing the liquid dish soap, I aim a long blast at the turbulence. I drop in the first of the dirty plates.
The second plate in meets the first one. There's a loud, diner-like clatter.
Oh man. Hey wait. Suds are bubbles. Bubbles are air. Air deadens sound.
I just need more bubbles.
(I've noticed that I don't think so well until I have the Elixir in the morning.)
Two long squirts later I have a cumulus cloud that has risen majestically out of the sink and is now drifting across the counter. Majestically.
I herd it back into the sink with
a dish towel.
We're havin' fun now.
The dishes, glasses, and silverware are moved towards the sink.
They're coated in this dried stuff which looked a lot more appetizing last night.
I drop them into the cloud and listen to the diner noise.
While waiting for the suds to drop along with the water temperature, I make the Elixir of Knowledge.
I reach under the sink for the scouring soap pad.
Those dinner-roll-sized steel wool things.
The ones that leave a blue soap film like Elmer's Glue.
I pull the first plate out of the suds, ready to scrub it within an inch of its porcelain.
And the scuzzy stuff wipes right off with the lightest of scrubs.
Huh.
The next plate, same thing.
I don't have to vigorously use the steel wool pad until I get to a belligerent spatula.
There.
Dishes done, sink cleaned, counter dried off, and I'm in the Chair in time to see the first blush of morning light, Elixir in hand.
Huh.
The soaking seemed to do quite a bit to getting the junk off.
Yeah.
That's how He usually does it.
We all get that crud on us, either by accident or by choice.
And unfortunately, there are those folks who self-righteously grab their KJV, NASB, or NIV steel wool pads and start scrubbing. Hard.
Whether they're invited to or not.
But He lets us soak in His love, sending His friends to keep pouring that warm love on us.
Until we, and the gunk, loosen up.
Until we want to be clean.
Like them.
Like Him.
Then His cleaning and scrubbing makes us clean once again.
Clean enough to see His face in the reflection.
Just like those commercials.
Wow.
Who woulda thought that some TV commercials are almost biblical, eh?