Asking for Help

I avoid asking for help with the dishes. No one else can load them into my dishwasher like I can with everything in the proper place and facing the right way and the exact perfect distances apart that they need to be in order to come out sparkling clean. My dishwasher is old and pathetic and doesn’t work unless everything is rinsed before it goes in there. No one else seems to understand this. Or why I don’t replace it with something that works better, and I will someday, but it’s hooked up all weird and not really built in because it still has a plug in instead of being wired and do I really want some dishwasher installer rolling his eyes at me until it’s absolutely necessary that I have to put up with that? Right now the water is hot and it disinfects things and the dishes are cleaner and better rinsed than if I did them myself in the sink.

Of course every good rule has an exception, and if someone else loads the dishwasher when I’m not looking and turns it on and then copes with the results on their own, that’s great. Just don’t let me see what’s happening at any point during this process, because whatever is going on is sure to be wrong according to the way I would have done it. Which is always the right way. I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that.

I avoid asking for help with the grocery shopping too. Mostly because I don’t like to be questioned about why I need whatever it is I’m putting in the cart. Some things cannot be explained.

I never avoid asking for help with something I can’t see any sense in doing in the first place, or don’t feel like doing alone, or don’t have the energy or ambition to tackle at the moment, especially if I notice that there are other people just lallygagging around doing nothing. And if they don’t want to help, I have no problem joining in and keeping them company in the loafing process while waiting for them to change their minds or until we all forget what it was we were supposed to be doing in the first place.

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