A Few Life-Saving Rules For Helping In The Kitchen

My wife, Cathy, has just a few simple, life-saving rules for helping out in the kitchen.

We have a special calendar hanging up in the dining room. Each day has a different name on it. It's the rotation between our kids, Ethan, Bella and Justin for who does dishes after dinner. AFTER. Dinner. BEFORE. Bedtime. We just finished a week of Ethan doing dishes, because he kinda forgot the other night and got caught up playing video games.

Cathy has a few simple, life-saving rules like that for helping in the kitchen. Do your dishes when you're scheduled to. The kids (are supposed to) help bring in the groceries and put them away. We're all supposed to clean up after ourselves when we make something to eat.

"Ask not what your Mom can make for you, ask how you can help make a meal with your Mom!" I think that was part of Kennedy's inauguration speech...

Anyway, we've learned from replacing our garbage disposal that there are some things that can never go down the drain.

3. Coffee grounds! Cathy and I aren't coffee drinkers. My Mom is, though. She's pretty good about tossing the old coffee grounds in the trash rather than putting them down the drain. Coffee grounds can clog up the pipes.

2. Egg shells. Those shells can break the disposal blades and even small shell fragments can - yep, you guessed it - clog your pipes.

1. Grease, cooking oil, butter or even mayonnaise. Cathy has a vegetable can on the counter she uses to catch grease and then we toss that in the trash.

Other stuff like expired medication, stickers off bananas and apples, flour and pasta - none of that stuff can ever go down the drain.

I think Mister Rogers had even come with a song about something like that a long time ago, didn't he?