I didn’t really want to make a big deal out of it, but I sort of have a little problem with my dishwasher. It’s nothing personal or anything – I’m sure it’s a great, little appliance in its own right and is probably a real hoot around the kitchen when I’m not around, but nonetheless it’s something that’s really been bothering me for quite a while now and I just think it’s about time that we got it out in the open. The problem that I have with my dishwasher is that it doesn’t actually work.

And while some might deem this a biased critiquing, please understand that I’m basing my allegations solely on the rule that if your name is nothing more than a derivative of what you were designed to do, you need to actually do it. Hence we wouldn’t call a pitcher a blender unless it could actually blend on its own, nor the tall, metal box in the corner a refrigerator if it lacked the ability to keep its contents in a refrigerated state. It’s a standard that really covers appliances more than anything else, but I don’t think it’s any more unreasonable than expecting, oh say, the caged bird to sing or a bear to, well, you know in the woods.

I started to notice the problem when I did my first load of dishes after moving into my new condo, so at this point it’d been a good three or four weeks since I’d signed all of the paperwork, received my keys, and filed the appropriate change of address paperwork with the post office, for those of you playing along at home. Said dishes came out with some streaks and water spots, however as I learned before with my last dishwasher, some machines take to different brands better than others, so I grabbed a different bottle from underneath the sink and gave it another go around. You know that you’re going to have problems when the dishes actually come out dirtier than they went in…after washing them twice!

Now I’m a bachelor of the standard variety – cleaning really only gets done when there’s a “girl” coming over, and even then I’m more apt to close doors and utilize several strategically placed throw rugs before I actually search out my “broom,” but if there’s one stereotype that I simply haven’t been able to adopt, it’s the use of paper plates and plastic utensils in place of something that actually has to be washed. Not only are they bad for the environment and rather expensive over time to boot, have you ever tried baking a soufflé in a pan made out of cardboard?! I’ll save you some time, my friends, because it just doesn’t work, and since I have been known to whoop it up in the kitchen from time to time (hint, hint – ladies!), it makes sense for me to go beyond the norm and use actual dishes and cookware for a change.

Unfortunately, to this day unless I’m willing to go wash them down by the river, there’s a good chance that cornbread, lasagna, and chocolate cake could be sharing flavors in my next array of baking delights – at this point it’s an unavoidable risk that a guy like me just has to take. Sure, every once in a while I might scrub a plate or two down myself, but the last time I did that, I honestly think that I could hear the dishwasher snickering over there in the corner and it just doesn’t seem right for me to encourage behavior like that. One of these days when no one else is around, I might have to get down and dirty with that thing – you know, just duke it out and finally show it who’s the boss once and for all, but right now I’ve got a girl coming over for dinner and I’ve got two of just about everything in my cupboard to clean in the next twenty minutes!

Do you think she’d object if I asked her to bring her own dishes?