Recently, I did something many moms do not dare to do. I boldly
crossed the lines that divide the genders
– in our house, anyway. Yes, I taught Junior to load the
dishwasher.
Recently, I did something many moms do not dare to do. I boldly crossed the lines that divide the genders – in our house, anyway. Yes, I taught Junior to load the dishwasher.
To be fair, many modern men load the dishwasher. I know this. I’ve even seen it with my own eyes. We’ve come a long way from the dark days when men of my dad’s generation didn’t even understand that the dishwasher was a household appliance and not their wives or children.
But most of these modern men do not understand the subtleties of proper dishwasher loading. They’ve never heard of the Alternate Utensil Technique, which makes forks cleaner than ever. They don’t understand the Rinse First Theory, which makes stuck-on gravy a thing of the past.
In fact, a recent poll concluded that most men do not even CARE to know how to properly load a dishwasher, which frankly was shocking to me. I mean, this is an entire gender of people who run around putting oil change stickers on cars and buying shiny cabinets to line their garages, and they don’t care about proper dishwasher loading. It’s practically criminal.
But I, being naive and stupid, set out to break the cycle, so to speak. Oh, all right. What I really wanted to do was have someone else wash the dishes. Was that so much to ask?
Of course it was.
Look, I started simply. I took Junior by the hand, and I introduced him to the dishwasher. I opened it. I showed Junior the place where the soap goes. I pulled out the racks. I showed him where the glasses went, where the silverware was placed and even where the big plates are set for washing.
After that we cleared the table, and I demonstrated proper rinse techniques. And then we did a full load of uncomplicated dinner dishes. And Junior watched and helped, and I really thought that he was going to be the first Sontag male in history to properly load a dishwasher.
Have I mentioned that I am both naive AND stupid? The next night, Junior cleared the table … and set the plates on the floor. Apparently, he had determined that rinsing the dishes was a complete waste of his time, which could be better spent having the dog lick the plates clean while Junior went to the playroom and played video games.
When I found the dog – which, by the way, has flatulence issues with people food – happily licking every plate and bowl she could find, I screamed in horror. That brought Junior running because he’s pretty familiar with the horrified scream, which in our house is usually followed by me bellowing, “Junior, get over here NOW” at the top of my lungs.
So Junior got a second lesson in proper rinse techniques, and he had to sleep with the dog that night, which wasn’t pleasant. But I figured that Junior had learned his lesson and wouldn’t be modifying any of my patient, loving, dishwashing lessons.
I know. Being naïve and stupid is no way to go through life. And it’s certainly not a good way to survive parenthood. But that’s why I didn’t watch him load the dishwasher the following evening. And that’s why I didn’t realize he put non-washables in the bottom rack, melting an entire set of plastic, hand wash-only flamingo dishes.
Have you ever seen a melted plate? It’s not pretty. It’s even worse when they have plastic birds oozing down them. But I didn’t yell. I didn’t even let out a horrified scream. I just threw the plates away. Well, all right – I did tear up just a bit. After all, they were my favorite plastic plates.
And then I realized that we hadn’t even used them at dinner. In fact, we hadn’t used them since summer.
Turns out Junior just wanted to see if plastic melted in the dishwasher. It also turns out that confiscating video games is a really good way to teach Junior that the dishwasher isn’t a science experiment.
That’s right. It’s been a week, and we haven’t had any meltdowns or dog washings. Of course, I am back to being the head dish washer in our house. Sometimes you just have cut your losses and move on.
And anyway, next month, I plan to teach Junior to mow the lawn. That should be fun.
