[This is what our house fucking looks like, and, can you tell, it pisses us off some times.]Sometimes we have parties, or we cook lots of food, or we just don't do the dishes for a while. Some of our roommates don't really cook. (We have no idea how they afford to "eat out" at Whole Foods every night.) And all this means that there are sometimes lots of dishes, and often there's no way to tell who should have washed what, which was used by whom, etc.
And sometimes we get bored at work, and we're just chillin reading the Internets, and looking at back issues of VICE. We like to read VICE, even if they only brag (obliquely, by the mere mention--don't you hate people that brag about doing something by making a nonchalant mentioning or indication of an act done, which, you just know they're making so little a deal about because they think it's cooler (more hip and aloof), but really it shows a way firmer, more insidious grasp on the (apparent) importance of the thing it is they're doing, a way firmer and more insidious grasp, that is, than just being really amped and excited and directly talking about what it is) about doing coke and heroin in the bathroom at work, which is actually just gross.
Well, our frustration with our roommates apparent lack of aptitude for doing dishes (we're the only ones that do the dishes in the house if you couldn't tell) has intersected with our boredom at work and said boredom's catalyzing our reading VICE, in order for us to re-read the following and be really touched by its simplicity and elegance. And we're not saying VICE is good for anything. But this is probably the best advice they've ever given us. (So, in the last analysis, we are saying VICE is good for something.)
DOs & DON'Ts—Dishes
If you live in a house with a bunch of people, you need a nail in the wall by the kitchen sink that has all your names stuck to it. Like, if there's five of you then you write everyone's name on a separate piece of paper, punch a hole in the top and hang the papers on the nail. If your name is on the top, you do whatever dishes are in the sink, then you can move your name to the back. You have to do whatever dishes are in the sink whenever your name is at the front, whether it's one bowl or a whole sinkful. Of course, if you're really tenacious, you will do your turn the second your name makes it to the front. That's not cheating. That's how the rule was designed. If all five of you acted the same way, the sink would always be empty and the roaches would be bummed.
The full VICE Guide to Everything is here.
