This dish needs to be washed again.
 
What do you mean? I just washed it.
 
Yeah, but look at that little black smudge on the back.
 
Sorry, I don’t see it.
 
Trust me, dear. It needs to be washed again.
 
Sure, OK. But does God equip women with special eyesight for dishes?
 
Maybe. But I think it’s more likely that God equips men with holes in their vision while they’re washing dishes.
 
I think we need to have a trial separation.
 
I know you’re kidding, honey. It’s just a dirty dish. And isn’t a trial separation what we have every Monday and Tuesday night when you’re at your house?
 
Yes, it’s very trying. I just sit there and miss you.
 
You do not. You mow the lawn and work in your garden in splendid isolation. You cook a nice little dinner. And maybe you think a little about how much you love me.
 
Well of course you’re right. I do think about how much I love you. But our dishwashing styles will never be compatible. They won’t even be complementary.
 
I got a nice compliment today.
 
Was it from that pushy guy at the coffee shop?
 
No, it was from a very nice older man standing next to me in line at the post office.
 
He was obviously hitting on you.
 
He was not! He was just being nice.  
 
What kind of compliment did he give you?
 
He said he liked my dress.
 
Totally hitting on you.
 
Do all men have one-track minds?
 
And we don’t even know how to wash the dishes.
 
(Smiling) My point exactly!
 
My mother tried to teach me how to do dishes. She was never very successful at it. But I think she secretly admired the way I used the kitchen sink sprayer to soak my brother when he wasn’t looking.
 
You were so not nice to your little brother.
 
But he made up for it by spending a couple decades beating me at fishing and tennis. And not to change the subject from this fascinating discussion about dishwashing — but is there anything for dessert?
 
You had dessert this morning at the bakery.
 
No, that was a tiny little sweet with my morning Americano.
 
Loaded with about a thousand calories. Didn’t you say you were trying to lose a couple pounds?
 
A thousand calories is isn’t even half the daily dietary allowance. So — dessert?
 
There’s no dessert in the house. But I was thinking we could watch a movie.
 
Oh, I saw a great one the other night when I was home alone missing you.
 
You watched “Home Alone”?
 
No, sweetie. I was home alone and I watched “The Big Sick.” Palestinian-American guy falls for a mainstream WASPy girl even though he’s supposed to marry a Muslim woman picked out by his parents.
 
Didn’t you say something about “Stranger Than Fiction”?
 
I watched that, too. Great cast: Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah and Emily Thompson. Plus Will Ferrell trying to be more than just comedy-stupid. But fun anyway.
 
He didn’t play Ron Burgundy?
 
You know about Ron Burgundy? I’m impressed. “Stay classy, San Diego!”
 
My brother loves “Anchorman.” We watched it when you were on that ski trip. The trip when you were eating out every night so you didn’t have to wash the dishes after dinner.
 
Hey, I resemble that remark. So did watching “Anchorman” while I was away make you want to dump me and go out with a TV newscaster instead?
 
No, it made me want to teach you how to properly do those dishes. You know what the novelist Ann Patchett said, about why she and her partner lived separately for 11 years?
 
Only eleven years?
 
Geez, you are a doofus. She said she didn’t want to get married because if they had a big fight it was easier to say, “I’m going home now” than it was to say, “I’m filing for divorce.”
 
You’re going home now?
 
You silly boy. Now about those dishes…
 
 

Gregory Dennis’s column appears here every other Thursday and is archived on his blog at www.gregdennis.wordpress.com. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @greengregdennis.