counter culture

It's inevitable in any family that the household chores will fall disproportionately onto one person. In my family that person is me. The other members of my house would argue that they do their fair share of cleaning, cooking, cleaning, laundry, cleaning...but they are lying and that is not the issue that I am going to talk about on this forum (we are waiting for an opening on Dr. Phil or Judge Judy to solve the labor relations disputes). Last Tuesday I came home from work (I ran home-literally-in my running clothes, in the dark, in the cold) to find the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes.
The nearly empty dishwasher in our house is approximately 5 1/4 inches southwest of the sink and it takes exactly the same amount of time to put something into the sink as it does to put it into the dishwasher. So what did I do when I come home to bowls with bits of dried oatmeal stuck to the rim? First I cursed really loudly, but since no-one was home that was a waste of time. Then I went into the movie in my head version of my life-where I am played by Demi Moore (although Marcia Gay Harding is a more accurate representation of the real me) and I visualize myself smashing all of the dishes, throwing them against the floor and laughing maniacally while they shatter...But in the real life version of my real life where I am played by myself plus 20 pounds, I don't smash the plates, I don't storm out of the house, I don't even cry anymore over the injustice..Instead, I take out a pad of paper and leave a series of notes attached to the wall above the sink. I call this the Thomas Paine approach and it is highly ineffective.
"Do not push your dish into the sink" "All dishes should go into the dishwasher" "If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, you need to empty it and then put your dish into the dishwasher" and so on and so on...there is a bit of remorse when the other family members come home and for a couple of days there are no dishes in the sink.. But eventually everyone finds a loophole "I started the dishwasher and then I drank some milk so I put my cup into the sink to wait for the dishwasher to finish" and by Saturday the sink looks like a refugee camp for housewares again.
So I put on my social scientist's glasses and try to "see" the bigger picture going on in the kitchen. There are the abstract concepts about domesticity, and there are the politicized concepts about feminisim but there is also the very real "we just have too much crap for it all to be put away at the same time" concept and that one is somewhat solveable. A quick survey of the counter top reveals a greasy electric sandwich maker, coffee machine, compost bucket, juice squeezer, toaster, dishdrain board, food processor, Kitchen Aide mixer, crock pot, jars for recycling, butter dish, bread basket, stainless steel cylinder full of utensils, half bottle of red wine, three metal baskets containing a sweet potatoe with black mold, two delicatata squash, three cloves of garlic and four really squishy tomatoes.
First, I washed the sandwich maker's trays and put it away in the cabinet. I took the recycling down to the basement. I threw the old produce into the compost bucket. I pushed the food processor into a corner and drank the rest of the red wine. I started feeling better instantly. Part of the reason why things stay out on the counter is that there is no room in the cupboards. The reason why there is no room in the cupboards is because they are filled with 15 years worth of accumulated things that we thought we needed when we bought them. I think one solution is to set up a sharing list. Like if you want to make 9 loaves of italian bread and you need the wire racks for them to lie on while they "proof" then you can borrow them from us. If you need a pot for chocolate melting or a wheat grinder (I am so not making this up) then you can borrow them too.
The good news is that we are down to one crock pot. I had an old one from my mom, then I got a newer one from my mom and then I asked for a really new one for Christmas last year. The oldest one is at school used for applesauce a few times a year, the middle one went home with a friend to be donated to her children's school and the newest one stands proudly in the middle of the counter!