Of all the families I could’ve been born into, it had to be an immigrant one.

 I could’ve been Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s love child but nope. Hi, my name is Nicole and this is a series I like to call: The Immigrant Chronicles.

Cleaning has always been something that I’ve absolutely hated. It’s so pointless to do. 

All you’re doing is moving the old dirt for the new dirt. I will stand by that statement till the day I die. But I guess my mom doesn’t take my ideology into consideration, cause goodness gracious that woman can clean! 

Always acting like Oprah Winfrey or Tom Hanks is about to visit. Almost every day, she cleans the kitchen, wipes the tables, cleans the bathroom, etcetera etcetera. The fact she does it willingly? I could never. 

But she’s not the only one that has to clean. My mom forces me to do the dishes. Which is the worst chore to exist. 

One minute the sink is empty, the next minute there’s a mountain full of dishes. That’s not even the worst part. I have to hand wash all the dishes which takes so freaking long. 

If washing dishes was an Olympic sport, your girl would be a 3-time gold medalist. 

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Nicole, why don’t you use the dishwasher?” Trust me I’ve thought of that many many times. But whenever I asked my mom if I can use it, she told me that the dishwasher is broken.

Usually, I would just let it go ‘cause I don’t know about y‘all but I don’t talk back to my African mom. But I just knew she was lying and I was gonna get to the bottom of it.

One evening as I had another mountain of dishes to tackle, I looked at the dishwasher for a good moment. It didn’t look like it was broken, so what’s the issue using it? 

Now should I obey my mother’s orders by not using the dishwasher? Yeah. But am I going to? Nope. So I rinsed everything that was in the sink and placed them in the dishwasher. Just like that, the dishwasher started to do its thing.

The very next day all the dishes were spotless. I was flabbergasted, dumbfounded. I was using words that I didn’t even think I knew. 

Shortly after, my mother walked in and boy did I give her a piece of my mind. By that, I mean respectfully asked her why she lied to me ‘cause she’s African and I’m not gonna put my life at risk.

Her response was “We as Africans don’t rely on machines. We do everything by hand.” And to this day, I’m not allowed to use the dishwasher. 

I know, I know, we didn’t get our happy ending. But look on the bright side!   

Exactly. There is no bright side. I’m never getting out of doing dishes.