NPD Trait: Being told "no" comes off as a personal attack
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Our current home has no dishwasher. When we moved in, D started using the sink strainer when he washes dishes.
From the beginning, I asked him to take it out of the sink when he's done, because it always re-seats in the drain. Sometimes he removes it from the sink; other times he leaves it in the sink. Either way, when he finishes the dishes, he then rounds up more dirty dishes and places them in the sink, covering up the strainer. When the strainer is in there, the weight of the dishes pushes the strainer down, blocking the sink drain. By the time I realize the sink is stopped up, it has started to fill with dirty water and I have to fish my hand around in the dirty water (sometimes navigating sharp knives) to pull the strainer out. I hate this. I don't have a problem with getting my hands dirty, but if I'm in the middle of cooking, unstopping the sink requires I stop what I'm doing, unstop the sink, wash my hands, then proceed with what I was doing. Other times, there are sharp knives lurking in the dirty water. Regardless, I have asked him nicely for the last two years, and he still shrugs and says,
"I forgot."
On Monday, he did the dishes, left the strainer in the sink, put a cutting board over it, stacked dirty dishes on top (raw chicken, grease, who knows what else) and walked away. By the time Kid#1 and I had washed our hands and set up the coffee maker for the morning, we realized the sink was stopped up again.
Oh, look. The sink is full of water again. Hooray.
I was exhausted that night, and called D over to pull the strainer out so the sink would drain. He caused the sink to fill, he can cause it to empty.
He gave me a look from hell, then walked over to the sink, pulled the drain, threw the strainer on the counter, and dried his dirty hands on the kitchen towel. As he walked out of the kitchen, he reached over to where Kid#1 was making their supper, and D tried to take some of their food with his dirty hands. Kid#1 yelled at him and told him not to touch anything because his hands are dirty.
Yep - He gave his own kid the same look from hell, shrugged, and walked off in a big huff.
I'm not only irritated about the strainer and his attitude, but the dirty hands thing makes me even madder. He has a culinary arts degree. He is food safety certified. He's worked with clean kitchen environments and food sanitation for decades, so he knows better. I also have food safety training and know that he contaminated the kitchen towel, giving us all the chance to get salmonella poisoning. In the past, I have seen him dirty the towel the same way, then try drying clean dishes on it (contamination risk!) I called him on it. He gave me a dirty look and stormed off those times, too.
He knows better, but he does it anyway.
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