Dialogue With My Dishwasher

My appliances are for the most part an amiable bunch. I get along with most of them just fine.

My stove is an easygoing sort. Not a high-end type, just a good solid stove. The burner tops are a little hard to clean but we’ve never come to blows over that.

As for my refrigerator, it may be taller than I am and lacking in those important self defrost areas but we get along.  I mean I like them both. They do their jobs and keep quiet about it.

But that dishwasher is another hunk of parts altogether.

I adored my dishwasher. You might say I worship at her altar. You might also ask why I anthropomorphize her. It’s easy. She has real presence.  She rules the kitchen.

I welcomed her with open arms. I embraced everything about her. She changed my dreary dishpan saddled life into one of orderliness and simplicity. No longer am I faced with a sink full of yucky dishes. No longer do my hands look pruney and wizened. No longer do I soak pot and pans.

Now that I am totally dependent upon her, I am a slave to her whims.

“Don't whine to me about your dumb Portuguese dishware,” she seems to be saying as I grudgingly wash my pretty ceramic cups by hand.

“Did I say anything?” I retort. “I know you will attack these poor pieces of pottery and scratch them to death so I don't let you wash them anymore. Couldn't you take it easy on a few of my favorites?”

“Too bad you have to make such a big deal about foreign dishware. Look here. I’m ready to accept all the made-in-America-certified-dishwasher-safe cookware you can find and wash them to perfection and you kibitz about earthenware. Who needs the stuff?”

“These ‘foreign’ dishes are beautiful! It's a joy to look at them. They make food taste better. And besides, that serviceable dishware you like isn’t particularly pretty.”

“Pretty! All you talk about it pretty! It’s about function my dear. After all, isn't it really about the food you’re eating not what you are eating off of?”

“I consider what I eat off of very important aesthetically.”

“Oh my god and a snob to boot!”

 “Come on. Just because you can’t handle the good stuff, don't judge me because I have good taste, you xenophobic dish mangler you.”

“Well, I just might stop working. That will show you

As I recall, my predecessor passed on the day before Christmas?”

“You’re blackmailing me? Go ahead. A lot of good you do me on Christmas anyway. You won’t accept 90% of my good dinnerware.”

“There you go again. Picky picky.”

“Or my mother’s silverware! You've made me give up wooden spoons. Buy very expensive stainless steel pots and pans. You've taken over my kitchen!! You are a tyrant.”

“Like I said, I can just go on strike. You can go back to washing stacks and stacks of dirty disgusting pots and pans. See if I care.”

“Oh go suck a lemon.”

“I’m a machine. I don't eat.”

See? She’s incorrigible. She has me cornered. I either do things her way or do the dishes myself.

I already wash my cast iron skillets by hand. She so thoroughly cleaned and dried them they had to be re-seasoned after every wash. Since cast iron is truly the best cookware I absolutely refuse to give them up.

Or take knives. If I want my knives to stay sharp I have to forget the dishwasher.  She will emasculate them in a trice.

And then there is all the stuff I wash by hand so she won’t be over stuffed. I look out for her why can’t she do me a favor or two?"

It seems that now I have to do everything her way. I finally replaced my aluminum cookie sheets. I had to buy new stronger cutlery.  My wooden chopping boards stay in the closet afraid to come out.  And she really did do a number on my Portuguese pottery. She chewed most of them up and spit them out at me.

So I surrendered. She won. I got rid of them just to shut her up.

Actually that's not the truth. I couldn’t really get rid of them. But after a look at my pruney hands I did put those adorable dishes at the top of the cupboard where she can’t see them and I can look at them longingly.