Law 23 of Roommates and Dishes

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

Each roommate knows that he does more than half the dishes.

That’s it. Just that simple. It’s a law of human nature, as dependable as gravity, and it’s caused by the way we see things.

For example …

Roommate A is very, very conscious of the dishes that he has washed, because he was there. If he was emotionally resisting the work, he was even more agonizingly there, and it seemed even longer.

On the other hand, Roommate A is hardly conscious at all of the time that Roommate B put in doing the dishes. Because while Roommate B was scouring the pots and pans, our pal Roommate A was thinking about a brunette or watching TV or worrying about the gubbamint.

It’s just a function of the consciousness of Roommate A. (Also see Law 23 of Human Consciousness.)

His dishes. Took forever. Some other dishes, done by somebody else, while he was wasn’t there, what do those dishes matter? Those are hardly any dishes at all!

Therefore his own dishes are vaster and more slow. It’s just human nature. Each roommate knows for certain that he does more than 50% of the dishes.

How is this useful?

Firstly, in any kind of negotiation, even though you know that you’ve done more than 50% of the blah-blah-blah, you’ve got to pretend to understand when the other person swears that they do more of the blah-blah-blah. For example, if you are married, your wife. As she will tell you, she does far more work around here than you do.

Grinny Bearit. Just the way life works. Another of God’s little jests. Let us all laugh together. Like this: Ha ha ha!

There. Knowing this valuable Rule-O-Thumb, go forth and prosper.