The Redundant Device

"Don't put dirty dishes in the dishwasher!" is a common cry from opponents of unclean culinary ware. Am I the only individual in the western world who perceives the ridiculousness of this bewildering order?

"What? Then what's the point of the damned thing?" is my usual retort, to which I am invariably subjected an operatic burst of scorn-filled eye-rolls and exasperated limb-flailing that would be far more suitable in the spotlight of a drag queen burlesque or for punishing a puppy that's just pooped on the Persian.

 

"The food washes off the dirty plates and is spread around all the others, where it dries on! Don't you know anything?!"

Well, I didn't know that. Because, y'know, it would belie the purpose of the bloody INVENTION. "So you want me to wash the dishes first?!?

"Not wash them, rinse them off!"

"What about baked on food residue that won't rinse off? And all the non-dishwasher safe stuff like these wooden chopping boards, over-painted crockery and mahogany-handled utensils?"

"Don't be so stupid! You have to wash all those by hand!"

There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...

"Pretend I'm an idiot, which I'm sure won't be too much of a stretch. You want me to wash all these things by hand, but rinse off these other things (yet still scrub the items that need a little more persuasion) and then place them in your dishwashing contraption, even though, to me, they're now clean, for further cleaning? You know rinsing and washing are segregated by simple soap and friction, right? Well, this rinsing off you're prescribing sounds suspiciously like washing, if you ask me, just without the soap. I can easily suture that scission by squeezing this handy plastic bottle..."

"The dishwasher sterilizes them!"

 

"For what? Are they scheduled for surgery?"

"For hygiene!"

Millions of years. That's how long we've managed to survive without automatic sterilizing dishwashers. Hell, for over 99% of that time we didn't even have plates! I would go so far as to suggest that occasionally ingesting a few antagonistic bacteria is a healthy habit. It gives the immune system something to gnaw on. That's how it works, y'see! In fact, practice is paramount to its effectiveness and hence our continued survival. Muck keeps us alive.

Now, I'm all about tidying up the kitchen; I love to cook in a clean one, don't get me wrong. What galls me is the predilection folks seem to have for the importance of the automated dishwashing device. Surely an efficiently structured clean-up schedule would void this modern-day inconvenience?

Apparently I am unfamiliar with the logic of logistics. I'm all for contrivances that save us time and energy, thereby speedily freeing us from our chores so we can get on with life, liberty and the pursuit of idleness. But a "labor-saving" mechanism that actually increases the time it takes to complete a task is, it seems to me, mind-numbingly redundant.

And it appears I am alone in this disbelief. At first I thought the dishwasher conspiracy was solely the suzerainty of the fairer sex, and only particularly fastidious women at that; but this disease of the mind has spread throughout the world of XX chromosomes, and now even blokes have become infected. I've witnessed grown men fussing and clucking around a dishwasher like it was a wingéd gift from Zeus.

When I lived alone, I never used my dishwasher. I grew up without one and never got into the habit of using it. I guess another thing I'll never understand is folks living in a sparsely populated household taking a week to fill their dishwasher before switching it on. Now, there is a breeding ground for germs!

Unless, of course, the dishes are already clean. (Dear Liza, dear Liza...)