Mission to the Czech Republic

It's pretty obvious who in our flat didn't grow up with a dishwasher. Not that there's anything wrong with not having a dishwasher, but when you're growing up, you develop certain habits when it comes to dish-cleaning that are directly affected by the presence of a dishwasher.

For me, the system is simple. Finish eating, scrape off extra food into the trash, maybe give it a quick rinse under the tap, and put it in the dishwasher. When there's no more space, you run the dishwasher, and in half an hour you have sparkling clean bowls, glasses, and cutlery. I like this system, not only because it saves time but because it keeps the dishes off of the counter. I am not a fan of piles of plates, cups, bowls, whatever, stacked beside/in the sink waiting to be washed.

My flatmates handwash everything. I understand their argument that it prevents us from running out of clean spoons if you wash them immediately, but the thing is, they never get washed immediately. And when they do, they are just stacked to the side of the sink. In the eyes of my type A personality, you have just transferred the unorganized stack of dishes from the left side of the sink to the right side of the sink. At least when using a dishwasher, you can leave them there forever and they still don't take up space on the counter.

My flatmates are great, so I really have no room to complain. We've kind of adapted our own little systems of doing things with an unspoken understanding that I'll always load and empty the dishwasher (I'll do all your dishes...I don't care), Jana pitches in with kitchen cleanup probably more than I do, John cooks, and Mark rounds out the group with his much appreciated comic relief.

I'm slightly amused at the moment how after all the things I've done these past few weeks that I could right about (salsa dancing, kareoke, bowling, etc.), I chose to write about dishwashers. Perhaps because I hear someone downstairs right now piling plates on the counter....