Having a dishwasher is a funny thing.  I appreciate the time it saves, so why is it that I will let dirty dishes stack up forever in my sink rather than unloading the silly thing when it’s full of clean ones?

I don’t mind loading the dishwasher … really I sorta like it.  I am a master at getting more dishes into one load than you can imagine.  But unloading is another story … I avoid it like the plague.  I’ll assign that duty to the kids or ask my husband to help out, but the simple fact remains … I have to MAKE myself do it.  It’s worse than laundry, sweeping the floor and changing sheets.  It’s worse than cutting the grass, grocery shopping, and vacuuming.  I’ll even rinse the dirty dishes and stack them neatly rather than unloading the dishwasher.  I’m sure Freud would have a picnic trying to analyze it.

Someone once told me that loading is “problem solving” and unloading is “maintenance”.  Most people like one or the other, but not both.  I don’t know if I believe that theory, but I do know that whatever the genes are, they run strongly in our family.  My mother says maybe we’re just lazy.

My sister has the same revulsion to dish-putting-away, so she did a little study on herself.  She timed how long it really took to put away all the clean dishes, so she could maybe justify her actions.  If she really tried, she could do it in two and a half minutes.  Even lollygagging, she could still get it done in five minutes, tops. 

Two and a half minutes.  I let dishes pile up because of a two and a half-minute chore.  Boggles my mind.  But does that change me?  Nope, not one little bit.

In my house, glasses are used almost faster than I can put them up.  It hardly seems worth the effort.  Same with spoons.  And cereal bowls.  I also have a couple of “favorite” pans which, if I wait long enough, I can use again straight from the dishwasher.

So, in my mind I have designed the ultimate kitchen, and in it are three side-by-side dishwashers.  When one is clean, you would just use the dishes straight from that one, and load dirty ones in the next one.  I figure you’d need a third one just to hold all the dishes that are “in process” at any given time. 

Sure, it would take more space for the three dishwashers.  But just think of the cabinet space you’d save!  You wouldn’t need one at all for glasses, for example, because they’d all be living in the dishwashers.

And I’d never have to put away another dish.

Problem solved.