Personality tests are filled with supposedly innocuous questions that have no real right answers. They are aimed at finding your true convictions and your present mindset. Then, with a bunch of science mumbo jumbo, they translate this into a profile that pigeon holes a person into a set of actions. I personally don't lend much weight to such tests, but today I found two real life questions that I have never seen on such a test and they probably should be included.
If you open up the dishwasher and see dishes, but are unsure if they have been run through and cleaned, do you run them again? The average man will seek out his better half for their knowledge or opinion on the subject. "Honey, are these dishes clean or dirty?" But if the Mrs. doesn't know, or it happens to be Saturday and you are trying to allow her to sleep in, what do you do? I suppose I should be able to tell by inspection of the dishes. They looked clean, but, with pre-rinsing and the likes, who can be sure? The dishwasher wasn't packed to the gills which is often the only time your mom will run it. In my case I opted for the "better safe than sorry" course and just piled on the new dirty dishes on top and decided to run it again. Worst case scenario, they are double clean. I also made a new year's resolution to empty the dishwasher faster upon completion.
After some rearranging and packing in the rest of the dirty dishes, I threw in the soap and hit all the necessary buttons and off it went. I am a little ashamed to say that I always wonder if I did everything right. Does this load require the "Pots and Pans" setting? What are all these extra compartments for different types of soaps and chemicals? Etcetera etcetera, but those weren't the questions for the personality test. No. That question arose when, after straightening the kitchen a bit and five minutes into the dishwasher cycle, I walked out into the living room and noticed I missed a couple dishes.
I swore I gave a thorough look see through all the rooms before finishing the loading. I at least had done a basic walk through when I made your cereal which was the impetus of all this dish cleaning anyhow. But here they were, a couple missed dirty dishes. There were enough of them that the nice clean empty space in the sink that was my badge of accomplishment was no longer. What do I do? Do I stop the dishwasher and add? Do I do these by hands? I opted for the "I will add them to the next load" option. I haven't decided if the next load will be immediately run or I will just immediately unload the last run and begin loading for the next run at some later time.
Your decisions and actions say so much about you, I know some social scientist most likely has a set formula for my choices. Somewhere there is a psychology text book that lists me as "overly cautious" because I reran the possibly clean dishes and "avoids conflict unless absolutely necessary" because I refused to interrupt the dishwasher cycle. The truth is that there really is no right answers and "knowing" yourself in the personality test way can be really overrated and in the end wouldn't affect your choices made in the moment. Sometimes doing dishes is just that, doing dishes, and we read into too much in this world.
Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo
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