Clever Magazine, Winter '09-10 " Dishwashers " (www.clevermag.com)

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The Care and Feeding
of Dishwashers

by Erica Stux

Being married, raising children, and running a household affords many opportunities for developing a sense of humor. I used many incidents in my life as a starting point to write the humor pieces that ended up in my book "Who, Me? Paranoid? Humor Humor Everywhere". "The Care and Feeding of Dishwashers" is an excerpt from the book, which is available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Wheatmark.com

For a long time I resisted acquiring a dishwasher. I visited many people that had one, and it seemed to me that their entire lives revolved around generating enough dirty dishes to keep their dishwasher properly fed. But gradually I came to realize that there are ways to accommodate a dishwasher's place in the family.

For a small family, having a dishwasher can present a problem. Large families, particularly those with a number of teenagers, have it easy. Someone is always getting himself a drink or fixing herself a snack, thereby producing lots of dishes to be cleaned up.

A person living alone must use more ingenuity. House guests - the more the better - are very good for a dishwasher, since one can offer unlimited snacks around the clock. A schedule could go like this: 8:30 am, breakfast; 11 am, coffee and a sweet roll; 1 pm, lunch; 4 pm, coffee and a donut, or a piece of fruit; 6 pm, cocktail hour; 7 pm, dinner; 11 pm, a nightcap. In this manner, as soon as dishes from one meal have been washed and put away, one can start filling up the dishwasher again for a new load. A lucky dishwasher can be utilized five or six times a day this way. Above all, resist any urging on the part of house guests to take you out to a restaurant.

Elaborate dinners for eight or ten people are good for a dishwasher also. Be sure to give each person a separate butter plate, salad bowl, water glass, and underliner plate for each course. It goes without saying that each course requires a different set of silverware. It doesn’t matter whether they actually get used or not. Have plenty of serving bowls with gravies and sauces on hand. Never put dressings or mustard on the table in their original bottle or jar; always empty them into another container. Lastly, offer a different wine for each course, served in different goblets.

Invite plenty of neighbors over for coffee. If they desire a second cup, give them just that as you whisk the first cup away. Give each neighbor her own plate containing cookies or a donut.

For the owner of a dishwasher, finger food is something to be avoided at all costs. If someone wishes to eat a peach, for example, take a knife (it helps if the first one is too dull and you must choose a second one), cut off a few bits of peel onto a plate, slice your peach into a bowl, place the bowl on a plate, and serve with a fork. In this way, you have two plates, one bowl, one fork, and two knives when you are finished.

To give your dishwasher a real treat, let the man of the house prepare pancakes for breakfast, or some other dish at which he fancies himself an expert. Or let the kids make their own sundaes. Either one should ensure a delectable assortment of plates, bowls, mixing spoons, and perhaps even a frying pan for your dishwasher.

If you leave town, you must make some arrangement to keep your dishwasher properly fed and happy while you are away. Offering your home to your best friend’s second cousins who are visiting from Peoria is one way. Letting that nice young man from your office use your home for a party is another way. This may backfire, though. You may return home to find dirty dishes all over the place, the nice young man having forgotten the starving dishwasher in the kitchen corner..

One young woman, in her zeal to keep her dishwasher happy, put her bowls of Early American Putterware in it, and ended up with several shapeless globs of plastic. Another one absent- mindedly put some delicate crystal wine goblets in hers, and came out with a mass of glass shards of interesting shapes. Evidently some wine goblets are too rich a diet for a dishwasher, and Putterware is too indigestible. But other than these restrictions, dishwashers are omnivorous.

In spite of their voraciousness, dishwashers are nice to have. In their own way they promote sociability, like dogs that have to be walked. Want to invite that new family from church with the seven children to your house for lunch or dinner? Go ahead, it’s no trouble. Remember, you’re supporting a dishwasher.

Now that I have one of my own, I think I’ll keep it. Perhaps it will survive on a lean diet.