The Canadians did it

There is a section of our kitchen counter that we sometimes don't glimpse for days at a time. It remains perpetually hidden by  a rotating collection of dirty dishes, dishes much too numerous for just the two of us, and that seem to grow whenever we turn our backs.

I suspect the Canadians.

There is precedent for at least some Canadians depositing unwanted goods on someone else. Ontario, for example, for years delivered its garbage to its neighbor Michigan, which, for those a little fuzzy in their geography, is not only a different state but also an entirely different country.

The reasoning was, ostensibly, that a landfill in Ontario had closed, and yet garbage was continually being produced. Ontario had an image to keep up. It was clean, tidy, pleasant. Garbage did not fit into this image. Therefore officials formed a committee to address the issue of pretending the province did not have any garbage. Talks proceeded something like this:

Committee head: Hypothetically, if we had a lot of extra trash -- which of course we don't -- how could we get rid of it? Hypothetically, of course.

Member 1: I know! Let's outsource it to Michigan!

(Heads nod.)

Member 2: Yeah, in Detroit no one will even notice an extra 11 million cubic yards of garbage. 

Committee head: Hypothetic garbage, of course.

Member 2: Of course.

And so Ontario's garbage emigrated to Michigan. And when that turned out to be satisfactory to both parties (Michigan charged a small "tipping fee"), the committee looked around for other things that might be embarrassing to the province and could possibly be foisted onto someone else. And they landed on: dirty dishes.

This is where, I posit, our kitchen counter comes in. It's really the only explanation for all the excess dirty dishes, other than that we a) are slobs or b) have ginormous appetites or c) have unwittingly been harboring aliens.

I have yet to work out why Ontario's dirty dishes landed on OUR counter.  But it is DEFINITELY better than garbage.