The Battle for the Kitchen

Every night my roommates and I get home at relatively the same time. We have three pasta pots, two sauce pans, one cutting board, and four stove tops. What typically happens is that we have to battle it out for who gets to cook first. 'Battling it out' means that even if I have set out my pot and my pan and am chopping up my things for cooking, they're going to be taken, typically by one inconsiderate person. This person will then feel the extreme indignity of my using the cutting board when she is the one cooking. She will then try and guilt trip me into giving up the cutting board, but since I am pissed that she stole my cooking utensils, I'll ignore her. Some nights I don't get to cook early because I am doing the dishes that no one else has done. Then other nights I will willingly not cook, to wait until everyone is done. What often happens on this night is that one particular girl often eats two dinners a night, and she sometimes cooks her second dinner before I even make my first. Her voice intonation often suggests that I am making her feel like she is doing something wrong to eat two dinners simply because I haven't eaten at all.
But the kitchen battle takes place in two areas. One is to cook. The second is to clean. Last week I did everyone's dishes several times, swept the floor, cleaned the stove, wall, and countertop. Our floor is designed so that you have no idea what is on it - it is such a multitude of neutral colors that anything dropped on it is automatically lost. When I swept last week, I found a piece of gnocchi. People kept taking the drain cloggers out of the drains and allowing food to slow them. They've stopt, but only after numerous scoldings (from myself) and finally a note (from myself) posted on the wall above the sink.
Now yesterday I got home before everyone else. I made a delicious dinner of pepper chicken and cheesy garlic artichoke bread. I did my dishes so that other people would be able to use them. I took the dirty dishes from the drying rack that someone thought they had cleaned but really failed to do. I took my dinner into my room, watched one episode of Criminal Minds on my computer, and ate a Snickers when I was done. I did my homework. I did the rest of my dishes. I refused to do anyone else's dishes so that they might learn how dirty the apartment really is.
When I woke up today, those same dishes were still in the sink. Clearly no one was going to own up to them. Tonight our friend Pati is coming over to make homemade gnocchi for us (she lives in a host family and she misses cooking) and our friend Jordan is coming to enjoy this dinner. So not only did I have to do everyone's dishes, wipe the sauce from the counters that wasn't mine, sweep the kitchen floor again, but I also felt the need to clean EVERY public space in our apartment, down to wiping down the kitchen sink. I am clearly becoming old.
Or responsible, if you want to look at it that way.

The Battle of the Kitchen will be temporarily suspended tonight, as only Pati and Renee are making dinner for all of us. But Part Two of Who Will Clean will most definitely resume in a few hours.