For reference, we just tossed our small microwave for taking up too much room.
At this point I’m resigned to it, but next time we move? Holding the line at dishwasher.
who am I kidding? We live in Portland, with a cat and a disabled dog. We’ll take what we can get.
Right on. : )
I remember a Far Side panel by the great Larson. A woman shouting from a first floor window “Alright, I believe that you can get something out of the toothpaste. Come back to bed.” And a guy with a steamroller driving over said toothpaste.
(Disclaimer: didn’t find it online, but I think embedding might cause legal problems anyway.)
DAMMIT! Where’s my icon of ‘milk shoots out nose’ when I need it?
Oh, I wish my co-workers at that job had been that interesting… The only ‘fun things’ I picked up from them were that they would smoke half a cigarette, pinch the fire off, and leave it balanced on the edge of a planter so they could smoke the other half on the their next break. But some of them would just smoke someone else’s half-butt in order to save money. We got paid every Friday. One Monday, everybody came in with new clothes (including ‘Prom Dress’) and were showing off their loot to each other. I asked why everybody went shopping on the same weekend, and they VERY CONDESCENDINGLY explained that because there were five Fridays that month, the fifth paycheck was ‘extra’. They had it all worked out in their minds, and explained it so thoroughly, that they almost convinced me. Almost.
I would wonder why this is the case for you. It really works brilliantly for me.
I don’t have to clean the dishes in our model. I get rid of all leftovers - a rare thing in our house anyway - and put them in. If I know I’m not setting it to run that night, I might rinse bowls which contained porridge, or pots used to cook rice. I would also maybe soak the casserole which was used to re-heat our equivalent of Mac’n’cheese, or whatever that abomination is called.
I do, however, use proper dishwasher soap, containing enyzmes. And I also use a dishwasher cleaning product every three or four months. And I clean out the filter at the bottom of the machine every now and then, last time in November I happen to remember.
Then again, the dishwasher we use is quite upscale. It came with the flat, and looking up its product number makes me think it lives in that kitchen for about nine to eleven years now.
To get the stuff to dry, I program it to run at night, and finish at about one hour before breakfast. When I get up, I simply open it, use a small cloth to remove some water sitting on top of the cup bottoms (not needed if tilted, of course) and remove all plastic containers. They do not heat up properly, so they don’t dry. After breakfast, the stuff goes directly to the cupboards. No further toweling needed.
But you should, of course, always know where your towel is.
So, I really wonder where the problem in your case is. Type of food? Type of water, and no salts? Type of detergent/product? Type of machine?
I, for one, am a great fan of our dishwasher. It saves a lot of water, and time. Plus, it provides free 3D Tetris challenges with amazing emotional rewards.
The water can make a world of difference. Depending on its quality, getting one of those little filter/treatment thingies is worth looking into.
YEAH! How come you can’t buy detergent with the ‘Country Time Lemonade’* already mixed in for hard water users?
For the record, my free dishwasher from Craigslist slowly died, function-by-function, until I was washing dishes by hand and using the dishwasher as a drying rack - they do hold a lot of dishes…The ‘new’ free Craigslist dishwasher is still sitting in the garage, with the dead one half pulled out because I can’t face the thought of turning off hot water to the kitchen sink until I ‘custom install’ the new one**.
*You’re supposed to run Country Time Lemonade powder through your dishwasher now and then to prevent mineral buildup.
** The old dishwasher was a 1/4 inch too tall for the kitchen counter, so I used a hacksaw to ‘custom-install’ it. For the new one, I plan to lower the subfloor and tile the cubby. And add neoprene carpet underlayment for soundproofing. And maybe use a ball valve to switch the drain water between the sewer and a tub outside for ‘outdoor projects’. And…
You just rewrote what I said, but took 18 paragraphs to do it. And pretended that you weren’t repeating what I said … 
Oh, my god YES! THIS!!
My husband after almost 18 years of marriage still hasn’t put two and two together: Do the dishes and you’ll get done too!
After cooking dinner, putting the leftovers away, loading the dishwasher, washing the pots and pans and then wiping up, why, yes, I would indeed rather watch The Good Fight.
There’s A Fly In My Urinal
This will have to be a guys-only experience, but should an urgent
need send you to the men’s room at Terminal Four at JFK Airport in New
York, or to the men’s rooms at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, or to any
number of stadiums, or — for any 10-year-old boys reading — to more and
more elementary school bathrooms all over America, you may see, right
above the drain, a perfect facsimile of a house fly. No, it’s not a real fly. It’s a drawing, baked into the porcelain bowl…
Maybe they could explain the European/Swiss concept of the 13th salary to me, because my wife’s explanations leave some doubts in my mind.
I wrote a thing about coop dish washing practices and how we got it to work:
It was a large victorian house separated into 11 bedrooms with common living space, but yes; it is amazing, and not always in a good way.
You and my husband. Sigh.
That’s fine, but it’s even better if whoever’s cooking cleans up as much as possible while they’re cooking. You can’t always do much, depending on what you’re cooking, but it’s usually possible to get a good start. It’s part of being a good cook, IMO.
I don’t have time to read all the comments, but I’ll bet I’m not the first to say that one of our happiest days as a couple was the day I said “let’s go shopping for a dishwasher.”
Oh, did I ? I was under the impression that you thought dishwashers were a scam?
Sorry, I might have been tired when I wrote my post. Of I’m tired, it’s difficult for me to stay concise.
“Dishwashers are great, as long as you …”
“Dishwashers are wonderful, except for …”
They sound ideal, in principle, but the endless list of exceptions that you and others have pointed out which make them not worth the cost and effort, AFAIAC. The list is so long that basically the only things you’re left with which can go in the dishwasher are all the items which are easy to wash by hand anyway.
I find the dishwasher saves plenty of time, clutter and drudgery. Not to disparage those who don’t consider hand-washing dishes drudgery – good for them.
Even if some things (say with baked-on cheese) need to be soaked, or if an item’s size and ease of clean-up mean it usually doesn’t go in (the colander), the way it turns a load of dishes into a 5-minute job makes this my favourite appliance.
If dishes come out wet, or need to be “cleaned” before going in to ensure they’re clean coming out, then there’s something wrong with the machine.
LOL.
There are plenty issues, for example, with computers. They are great, except they are a scam, by your line of argument.
I could calculate a PCA by hand.
I could also do my dishes by hand.
