Dishwashing

from DOCTORS, DENTISTS, DISHWASHERS and other DEMONS OF MODERN LIFE

(c) 1996 by Fred Flaxman

I have never learned to cook. Never had to develop the skill. My mother cooked for me as a child, my roommate provided this service for me in college, and my wife has taken on these responsibilities ever since. The only culinary art I've ever mastered is dishwashing.

Dishwashing may not be as much fun as sex, as much exercise as jogging or as relaxing as a whirlpool bath, but it does have its advantages:

Like sex, dishwashing is most enjoyable when it's not performed routinely three times a day, and is both dirty and clean, depending on how you look at it.

Like jogging, it keeps you on your feet and facilitates creative daydreaming. But unlike running, you can do it comfortably no matter what the weather is like outside. And there is much less chance of keeling over with a heart attack. In fact, dishwashing never killed anyone, even though most people avoid it like the plague.

Like whirlpool baths, dishwashing permits you to play with hot water and soapy suds. And there is no law against doing it in the nude, although I'll admit it's not common practice, and I wouldn't tell my neighbors, if I were you.

Dishwashing helps instill the democratic values of our society. It promotes the equality of men and women. And it is particularly effective at taking high-ranking, overly-paid, over-bearing, over-confident corporate executives and reducing them to humble household hired hands and bumbling, glass-breaking blockheads.

Dishwashing -- like reading, writing, speaking and composing great music -- separates human beings from the lower forms of life. There is some question as to whether certain animals speak, but none have ever been found who wash dishes.

For those who spend their days doing mental work in offices, dishwashing supplies a righteously routine, thoughtless activity that gives the brain a badly-needed after-dinner rest. It's Western Civilization's equivalent of contemplating your navel or repeating your mantra.

Even after all these years of women in the work force, most wives who bring home the bacon still cook it. Dishwashing is easier than cooking, and yet many wives who do all the meal preparation will accept after-dinner clean-up by their husbands as "doing their share" of the household chores.

Dishwashing would probably be even easier if it weren't for dishwashing machines. These force you to rinse the dishes thoroughly before you put them in, so what sticks to the plates won't get permanently baked in by the intense heat of the dry cycle. They don't seem to work for pots and pans, which are the only cooking utensils which are tough to clean anyway. You also have to eliminate anything made with wood which can crack, thin plastics which might melt, narrow pieces which can fall through the basket and jam the motor, things that are too big to fit, and cups that hold water in their concave bottoms when they are turned upside down. That excludes virtually everything. And then you have to spend too much time trying to figure out how to pack what's left into one load, so as not to waste soap, water and electricity.

With as many pluses as dishwashing has, I wonder why it usually receives such a bad press, or no press at all. Well, I've been wondering long enough. I'd better finish this and go wash the dishes.

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