To the person who loaded the dishwasher three quarters full and then left it all night:
Really? There are three children and two adults in this house and you couldn’t find anything else to shove in there? No pot lids? Coffee pots? Stray mugs or glasses? Containers full of rotten food in the fridge? Yesterday’s lunch boxes? Plastic toys? Scrub brushes? Anything?! I dream that one day I, too, shall find nothing more that could use a run through the dishwasher and then I shall lie down and die.
But fine. Let’s say there was nothing else to go in the dishwasher. Maybe magic dish fairies fluttered down from on high, cleaned, polished and put away half of the dishes, leaving only enough to fill the dishwasher three quarters full. Could you not just run it anyway? I know, know. As a matter of principle, we should only ever run a completely full dishwasher for the sake of conserving water and energy and for the planet, the children and the bumblebees or something. But we’re going to be running that goddamn machine every single day (sometimes twice a day) for the rest of our foreseeable lives no matter what. The fraction of a load’s worth of energy savings is but a droplet in the ocean of eco concerns facing our world. We should all do our part, yes, but my part will be much better run if I can start the day with clean dishes. It’s all I ask.
And while we’re at it, how about all those times when you do run the dishwasher and leave a counter full of dirty dishes? I could wash up after a hockey team with the gaps you leave between cups and bowls. If it doesn’t fit, you’re doing it wrong. That’s right, I always make the dishes fit. And if, for some reason — probably because someone left the dishwasher three quarters full of dirty dishes the night before — there really are more dishes than can fit, do you know what I do? I hand wash the rest so we can actually have clean dishes in the morning. It’s all I ask.
Ugh, no. That doesn’t go in there! Neither does the wooden cutting board, the cast iron frying pan, the knives and much of the plastic. And really, you’re better off just washing most pots and pans by hand. And that sippy cup is top shelf only. The Tupperware too. How is it my role in life to be the keeper of all the dishwasher knowledge? I don’t remember enrolling for that particular specialty.
Breathe, Rebecca. It’s okay. At least someone else is trying to help with the dishes. Our grandmothers would be so lucky.
DID YOU JUST PUT DIRTY DISHES IN WITH THE CLEAN?! Can you not use your eyes? I know in an ideal world the dishwasher would always be emptied all at once and you would never have to think about it. But I don’t live in that world, do I? No, I live here, secure in my anointed position of chief dishwasher.
Why even bother washing them in the first place? Let’s just drop it all off at the Goodwill now. We’ll have one cup and one bowl per person and that’s it. It will be far easier to teach the kids to hand wash one cup and one bowl than to teach them the intricacies of how to load and unload a dishwasher. Clearly.
And if I donate all our dishes and leave us with one cup and one bowl each, what chance does the basement full of assorted sports paraphernalia have? Maybe you should think of that the next time you decide to leave a three quarter-full dishwasher over night.
Signed,
The mothereffing dish fairy
Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. While my feelings about my dishwasher are real and acute, there is no connection between the events herein described and the events in my own home. Nor yours, I’m sure.