Upon seeing the phrase, dishes jenga, “what is jenga? a misplaced word?” asked one of my grammar cop beta readers. And I scrambled, you mean, people don’t have this awful tower in their own house?
So, to my readers, I’d like to say, yu are so lovely and sweet, and your help is magical. Because you reminded me that not everyone’s house gets like mine and Sophia’s, I added a line about Sophia holding her breath while she waited for the whole tower to topple.
The dishes jenga is when you have taken the time to hand wash your dishes and either stacked them up on your drying rack or, in our house, a towel to dry. The dishes remain there, waiting to dry and be put away. Instead, you washed your dishes again (and maybe again), so that those dishes on the drying rack/towel, have now become an unwieldly tower, that threatens to fall over any time you look at it cross-eyed.
Your dishes now resemble the children’s game of stacked blocks and, in both versions, you lose if the whole tower topples because you took the wrong piece.
You dread putting away the dishes because you know that whichever dish you touch is likely to send the whole thing toppling to the floor, but you need the cheese grater and the pot from the bottom of the pile to make dinner tonight. Or maybe it’s a mug from the middle, whose weight is holding down the cookie sheet that’s precariously balanced on the back of that oddly shaped serving bowl.
So, you grab one thing, catch anything that falls with the other hand, and if not too much has fallen, make your tea. Otherwise, it becomes time to put the whole thing away.
Okay, and lovely beta readers, it’s not you or you probably would have known what dishes jenga meant.
So, it’s just me.
And, well, in my books, Sophia. So, I’m not completely alone. At least Sophia and I have done the dishes and they’re not so piled up in the sink. Way to go Soph!
The dishes jenga makes an appearance in Poison and Paint, my latest book, which you can buy directly from me or from your favorite retailer.
