Tuesday, February 4, 2014

VORB

This past Sunday was a spectacular day: it rained. The rain started mid-morning just as I was leaving to go to work for a few hours. It was raining hard enough to use my windshield wipers as I drove south.  (My co-worker friend asked me to cover her Call while she practiced outrigger paddling, Hawaiian-style, in Morro Bay. They got rained out before she was able to get in the water but practiced "dry-paddling".)

Four hours later with a super-sized Ben Franklin sandwich in hand I returned home to feed The Man, The Boy, and myself. When I walked in the kitchen there was a familiar-looking dish in the dish drainer. You know that feeling you get when you recognize something but also know it's out of place? Well, after a few seconds my brain did a finger-snap and I said, quite loudly, "Why is Mele's dog bowl in my dish drainer?"

I mean, the dog eats in the garage. The bowl is on the ground. We don't clean her bowl, she licks it clean herself. So why is it in my kitchen and in my dish drainer? Yuck!

The Man explained that he found Z. trying to put it in the dishwasher. When asked, Z said I had asked him to clean it before I left. Well, The Man didn't want to mix the dog bowl with our dishes so he instead hand-washed it in my sink and then put it in the drainer to air dry. Yuck, again!

What I had asked The Boy to do before I left was to rinse the (human) dishes that were in the sink and then put them in the dishwasher. No mention of a dog dish nor did I point or look at the dog dish while I gave him the chore. Though, I have to admit we were standing in the garage.

The next time I give a chore to Z. I will have to do a "VORB", Verbal Order Read Back, it's what we do at the hospital when taking MD orders; the order is repeated back verbatim. No confusion. No mixups. No dog dishes in the drainer.


Spotlessly clean SoufflĂ© Mele's dog bowl