Of all the things to take for granted
I was reading this post of Swistle’s and it (and the comments) got me thinking.
I have never lived in a house (or apartment) without a dishwasher. I mean, yeah, I lived in the dorm my freshman year of college, but there was a dining hall so it wasn’t like I was doing a lot of cooking.
Other than that, I’ve always had a dishwasher handy. I wasn’t responsible for doing the dishes when I still lived with my parents – that was always my dad’s responsibility. Mom cooked, he cleaned up the kitchen (and WOE TO YOU if you stacked dirty plates one on top of the other because then he would have to rinse BOTH SIDES. But I digress), and therefore Dad was the one who loaded the dishwasher.
The comments in Swistle’s post seem to indicate that a lot of couples fight about proper dishwasher loading, something else that’s a rather foreign concept to me. Again, probably because I grew up in a house where only ONE person did the loading.
N and I both wash the dishes, but neither of us is particularly anal about the way the dishwasher gets loaded – plus we each have the knack for tetris-ing dishes efficiently. And we’re both pre-rinsers, so no argument there either. We don’t tend to load it with pots and pans, or large out-of-the-ordinary dishes unless we plan to run it immediately and there’s leftover room.
So now I’m curious: Is the dishwasher really a big-ticket issue in some households? People argue about how it is loaded, or what is loaded in it? I know there are differences of opinion (the way my father insists on loading the silverware positively IRKS me when I’m back at their house), but I guess since N and I are on the same page it isn’t a big deal for us.
Do you have a dishwasher? If so, do you pre-rinse or just cram dirty dishes directly in there (like my father-in-law, because it is a dishwasher, after all)? And am I the only person who would prefer to rinse dishes and load the dishwasher rather than unload it?
(Incidentally, I am quite aware that this may be the most mundane post I’ve ever written. I was so busy today that at this point my brain cells are all refusing to think straight. Shut up.)
February 1st, 2010 at 8:46 pm
No…this is good. This is thought-provoking. Seriously. Being single and living alone for MANY YEARS, I have a special relationship with my dishwasher.
I LOATHE unloading it. In fact, like laundry, unless I unload it immediately after it’s finished, I just take the items I need out of it while the sink piles high with dirty dishes. Inevitably, I tire of the pile of stinky stuff in the sink and load the dishwasher BEYOND CAPACITY and run it immediately. I put things wherever they fit. Pots on the top, wine glasses on the bottom (because they just. won’t. fit. on the top rack). I have a new appreciation for HAVING one, however. My friends in St. Louis don’t have one at all. OH, THE HORROR.
February 1st, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Yes, do not take your dishwasher for granted. Mine was just a big drying rack for several months and I HEART the new one. YAY!
And also – my spouse CAN NOT LOAD IT CORRECTLY. THE END. And I have no special particular order or place for things other than put in as much as possible and don’t put in things you know there is no way will get clean. I could not tell you his philosophy. And I think that is the problem. He does not bother to think while he is loading IT! he just throws stuff in with no thought. Not cool. He is just not a spacial thinker I guess… this same thing applies to loading the car.
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:48 am
Actually, you don’t handle the bottom rack to my satisfaction, but I’m not willing to pick a fight about it. I just rearrange things the next time I put stuff in there.
In general, though, we’re on the same page in the dishwasher.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Similar to TMF – when Clinton loads the dishwasher not to my satisfaction, I just rearrange it when I load the next time. My complaint is that when he unloads the thing, he doesn’t turn the knob to let someone know that the dishes are dirty and because he compulsively washes the dishes prior to putting them in the dishwasher it’s kind of hard to tell if they’re clean or dirty – although if one eats off a “dirty” plate that Clint pre-washed – it’s really already clean, so it’s not the end of the world or anything.
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I would much rather load the dishwasher than unload it. The end. Our dishwasher is a piece of crap; you have to pre-rinse everything. AND, we never put glasses in it because they get cloudy (and we’ve tried EVERYTHING, believe me). The whole inside has a ton of lime and other disgusting deposits, and I just want a new one. Ick.