To Do, or not To Do

(Warning: this particular rant could be hazardous)

So I struggled out of bed, put the coffee on, had a glass of juice, put an English muffin in the toaster, then turned to empty the dishwasher while waiting for the muffin to toast.

The dishwasher had not been run last night.

"There's only 4 plates in it," Hubby protested.

I pulled out the bottom rack. "Four plates, two cereal bowls, a cutting board, two large pots, and the cutlery tray is half-full." I pulled out the top tray. "No fewer than sixteen glasses and mugs," I said.

"I'm going to put the morning's dishes in and run it now," he complained. Yes of course, because you're actually supposed to be going to work...

I know many otherwise sane people who do not use their "conveniences" to their full advantage. To them, a dishwasher is a holding tank for every plate they own, and they won't use the thing until it's so full they actually have things that won't fit in it, which they then wash happily by hand, all the while proving their own short-sighted theory that a dishwasher can't wash everything. Others have left it so long to run the machine, they have to dump water into it to prime the pump, because it's dried out. People, people!

I have no difficulty with the theory of hand-washing dishes, but let's get real here. Nobody in THIS house is going to wash a plate, a glass, or even a knife, unless they cannot find one single available clean one, or even a reasonable substitute. People's Exhibit A: the Mason jars being used as drinking glasses. I actually did recently give a 15-minute class on "How to properly wash and dry a glass if you can't find a clean one." Yeah, good luck with that! I noticed the day after that a ziplock baggie had been used as a sippie-sack. "Uncooperative" does not even BEGIN to describe life here!

I lived with a German family shortly after I left my first husband, and learned a whole lot about good housekeeping habits during the three or four months I was there. They had four children, aged 8, 3, 2 and 2. Yes, twins. Along I came, with my 2 year old in tow. That made three children in the house still in diapers at the time. My friend B worked miracles in her kitchen, but she especially got through to me about the dishwasher.

"Vot gutt is it to have the thing sit there, not vashing dishes?" she asked me in her low voice. "I use my dishwasher. Every meal, just like vashing the dishes after every meal used to be done by hand. Odervise, you go to cook dinner, and a chopping block is still dirty, und you haff to take it out and vash it by hand. With six mouths to feed, I don't haff time to stop and do anything. So the dishes get vashed, each meal, every meal, und even more ven I'm baking!"

When it comes to cleaning, the rule has ALWAYS and WILL ALWAYS be: DO IT NOW, STUPID!

"Oh, it uses too much water," the timorous non-users complain. Hello, it comes with this little button on it that says "small load." And guess what? Today's dishwashers use way less water anyway. Plus, they kill germs much better than a half-hearted swipe with a slightly greasy and cold dishcloth that's been sitting wet on the counter for god-knows-how-many-days! And you want to talk about drying dishes with a linen tea-towel? Hey, I've done my time church basement dinners! It's fun, there, because everybody pitches in and all the towels are clean.

Here, you go to pick up a tea-towel and you stick your hand into last night's spaghetti sauce, because some twit of a teenager doesn't know the difference between a dishcloth and a tea towel......grrrrrrr DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!!

Okay people listen up: You spill something, wipe it off, rinse the cloth till it's clean, hang it up so it can dry out and not become a growth factory.

You eat a meal, rinse and load your dishwasher and RUN the damned thing! Your dishwasher cannot get your dishes clean if you let stuff dry on them. And if you're stupid enough to actually wash your dishes before loading you dishwasher so you can wait to run it, and meanwhile have to take out half the stuff that's in it so you can wash it by hand becuase you need to use the item before the second-coming-of-Christ.......!

I do not like having to search for my utensils or pots for a meal I'm making only to find it's been sitting in the sink for three days with stuff piled on it that's gone "off" because somebody THINKS there isn't enough to make it worth while to run the dishwasher! It it ALWAYS worthwhile to run the dishwasher. Think of the savings in alimony payments alone!

Next week: the hideous truth about laundry.