Bob,
Regarding the dishes, you could use one of my best friends techniques. It would involve a window and the highway...
We were sitting in the back cockpit of his boat after a sunset dinner on the lake for the four of us. His wife asked him to wash the dishes and without batting an eye he stacked them all neatly and then heaved them over the transom into the lake never to be seen again. He proclaimed "Dishes are washed"...We thought this was all quite hilarious at the time having had a few beers. I do believe that his wife bought a new set of dishes whose expense assured that a more suitable dishwashing technique would be used in the future. We do pay for our sins....it is still funny when we recall just how short his dishwashing career really was that evening :-)
Later Ed