Broke Wife, Big City
An open letter to my dishwasher
By Aprill Brandon

I hate you, dishwasher. I hate you so much.

Seriously, so much. Like, if you were on fire and I really had to pee, I'd still use the toilet. Because you know what? The toilet doesn't constantly remind me what a failure at housekeeping I am. Sure, it starts to murmur something after too many weeks of neglect but you...oooooh...YOU.

There you are, everyday, just sitting there. Needing something. You always need something. Need emptied. Need filled. Need the gunk from your bottom scraped out because someone (FINE! ME!) was too lazy to scrape the dishes beforehand.

Oh. OH! And don't even get me started on your job performance. You literally have one job to do. It's in your very name, for crying out loud.

Dish. Washer.

And yet, it never fails. I pull a supposedly "clean" glass out of you only to discover the fruits of your labor have left behind a weird crust on the bottom of it. Or I pull a plate out only to find you were too lazy to get ALL the ketchup off. Oh! And my personal favorite, the pan you decided to completely ignore even though I soaked it in hot water and soap for two hours beforehand to try and help you out.

I just don't get it, dishwasher. What did I ever do to you to deserve this? The Great Thanksgiving Overload Incident of 2011 notwithstanding (WHICH I apologized profusely for already). I mean, none of my other appliances are nearly as needy and underachieving as you are. For example, your cousins, the washer and dryer, do their jobs incredibly well, even going above and beyond on those rare (and/or weekly) occassions when I happen to spill wine on myself.

Your nemesis, the stove, doesn't constantly remind me it needs attention with a giant pile of dirty dishes overflowing from the sink. The fridge? Only needs emptied and refilled with actual edible food when out-of town guests are coming over (and then only if I really like them). The TV? Well, that glorious machine...no, you know what? That's not even close to a fair comparision. The TV is pretty much my soul mate with my husband coming in at a distance second, so let's not even go there.

But the point remains, you are the appliance equivalent of a juvenile deliquent teenage boy. Your whole purpose in life is to make my life a living hell, a situation I end up blaming myself for because it's simply your nature.

And you know the worst part of all of this? I'll never not need you, dishwasher. My only two alternatives are to start washing dishes by hand and/or stop eating altogether. And I refuse to do the one because it's wicked gross and I refuse to do the other because modern food science has given us frozen mozzarella sticks you can now make from home.

So, where do we go from here, dishwasher? Huh? HUH!? It's not like I can ignore you and give you the cold shoulder until someone else (cough...my husband...cough) notices you need attention. The last time I tried that, we ended up eating cold soup out of a frisbee.

So, I guess the only other thing I can hope for is that this column wins me a Pulitzer and consequently I become a filthy rich and famous writer who can finally afford to pay someone else to deal with you.

Fingers crossed.

Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?

Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/