Dishwasher

We probably spend way too much time thinking about our dishwashers. I think that I can say this with some confidence after years of hearing bickering about how to choose the best one, how to load it properly, which soap to use.

In the full spirit of journalistic integrity, I'm one of the worst when it comes to thinking that I have a better system than you do. I do. Yours sucks compared to mine. I guarantee it.

Okay, I no longer guarantee it. Here's why.

Friends en route from CA to WA stayed over at my place on Saturday. Being nice peoples, they helped clear the plates and -cue the horror music- loaded the dishwasher! This nice act is a kind of agony for those of us too insane to accept the kindness of normal non-neurotic peoples. My response was a nimble one that steered any concern away from how vital it was to stack the dishes correctly. Part of me felt that was a true response. The other part expected a micro-epic of disaster. Like Frank Gehry had stacked my dishwasher.

Wrong! I was wrong! Wrong in a special surprising way. Turns out that in addition to a pleasing organizational competence, a center rack that I had never used was revealed unto me. I had never even seen it! I kid you not. I opened the steaming dish laundry and I was transfixed by bowls floating above the bottom tray. How in the hell was that possible? Was there a Virgin Mary etched in steam on the dwasher walls too?

So did I not use this the first time I used the DW and thereafter it because invisible to me? Are there other dillweed miracles like this in my life? I know that my car has five forward gears (and reverse), the alphabet has 26 letters, doors open in and out. If you happen to spot any other gaps that I might have missed, please feel free to point them out to me.