WASHING-UP

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 442, 25 May 1937, Page 3

WASHING-UP

Generosity With Plates The psychological effects of wash-ing-up vary with 'different mentalities,, so much indeed that it is a good index to character, says an exchange. There (are generous souls who wash up and yet .continue -to contribute a perfect glut of plates to the general weal. They provide plates for bread alone, for bread and butter, for small of celery. They contribute spoons even to those who have refused sugftr for years. They press hot plates and cold plates upon their guests, just tat* though plates washed themselves up or that it were a pleasure to dabble with dishcloths and mops. Other people, usually including oneself, cannot bear /‘he sight of a plate used unnecessarily. spend their time watching plates that are not used, making do with one pllite or two, putting salad on the same plate as cheese of meat, occasionally, w r hen there is nobody that matters, using the dish itself instead of dirtying another plate. Washing up, in short, makes them laborious in th e sense of not washing up. Others strike a middle wtay by a general efficiency. When they go out to dinner* their instinct is to pile up their hosts’ plates, tipping the debris on to a solitary plate, as happens in the smaller French hotels. Washing up is preceded by a genera] scraping of plates, with a rubber tool, la general rinsing, and then a comfor-able wash tn soap and water. It is so scientific that it becomes a almost a distinction. This,, of course, only applies, to one’s own washing_up. If it were a question of washing eternally for others more plabeg might “come a-two” in the hand or might be put smudgily to bed; tihey might transcend all laboursaving devices. Perhaps washing up is a sort of penance for good food, which is commuted by the fortunate but which at bottom is heartily disilked by all the world.