Olde Floridae

Know how when you stay at a VRBO or Airbnb and the owners leave instructions on what to do with dirty dishes? Genevieve and I just spent a lovely weekend in Cedar Key and found ourselves in a conundrum on that topic as we were packing up to head home. While she got our suitcases and things together, I cleaned the kitchen.

The owners asked that we run the dishwasher to clean the plates, cups and flatware, but some items would not fit. No problem, I thought. I’ll just grab a kitchen sponge from under the sink and scrub them up. There were plenty of sponges to choose from, but oddly, they were all cut in half. Again, no problem, I thought. But then I realized the awful truth about these sponges: They were all for right-handed people, and ol’ Clive is a lefty!

I called my lovely Genevieve to talk about what to do. Do I use my weaker right hand and run the risk of not cleaning everything well? Do I leave them in the sink and take a chance on losing our deposit? I certainly wasn’t going to ask my fair lady to do them. She has hands of beautiful ivory, and cheap Palmolive dish soap must never touch them. I made my decision: I would try to wash them right-handed. It … did not go well. I felt like a fish out of water trying to scrub with my right hand using a sponge made strictly for that uncoordinated appendage. Seemingly none of the food came off, and forget about trying to cut the grease. In short, it was a massive failure.

Ultimately, we decided to cut and run by throwing those dishes away and leaving the owners a note about how we were robbed during the night, with the burglars concentrating solely on kitchen items. Toodles!