The Magic Machine Called the Dishwasher

I was born in India and lived there for 23 years of my life (and then left my job, family and everything to move 5000 miles away from home, remember?). And in all my years in the country, including all the years I spent living in 4 different cities and visiting countless others, I have never, I repeat, never ever, come across a dishwasher in an Indian household. At least not a mechanized one. I have seen the human kind at homes where petty house-owners like to brand their "domestic help"s as "servants", truly believing that they're machines devoid of any emotion. But more on that later.

I was always one of those kids who entered the kitchen only while sleep walking to the fridge for a midnight snack or to find out what's for dinner. Chores including cooking bored me out of my skull but spending time with my parents while they cooked, pretending to stir while they were away from the stove, and taking in the relishing fragrance with each extra spice that went into the dish, are memories cherished for life. However, each time my mother asked me if I could do the dishes that evening, I would immediately remember some test I had to prepare for, or a very important post I had to share on Facebook. I would make coffee for myself every now and then, and leave the spoon that I used for stirring the copious amounts of sugar that I emptied into my cup, right there in the sink. I would then walk out of the kitchen, too scared to bat an eyelid or look back at my disappointed mother who would shout out to me, "You will learn your lesson when you're forced to live alone or when you get married and are forced to care for a husband and 5 children!!!!!!". What she said was, at the time, the scariest thing she could say to me. I'd wake up from nightmares of me drowning in a sink filled with dirty dishes, with her words still ringing in my ears (just exaggerating - my dreams are mostly about murder). And now that she's not here to clean up after me, I have only one thing to say to her: "HAHAAAAA!!!! In your face, Motherrrrrr!". (I am thankful for the magic machine called the dishwasher, Lord, and pliss pliss pliss, never ever, take it away from me for the swagger I directed at my motherrrrr).

If you care for your fragile hands, or worry about the longevity of your latest manicure or read up facts about how dish-washing liquids and warm water can dry out the skin on your hands to make them look prematurely old during the winters OR simply realize how the chore of doing dishes is the most unproductive and painfully boring thing you could do during your day, I just want you to know that, "I feel you, bruh!". Unless you're a mood pooper like my best friend Punchy (yes that's the name she was born with - just kidding, or am I? - but more on that later) who is paranoid about every imaginable thing on earth and believes that you could die of fungal infections and lung failures if you use dishwashers. I didn't have to know that, Punchy! I really didn't have to know that.

In the seven months of gorging down food like I have "not a care in the world", and using up plate after plate (because dishwasher, bruh!), the only task at hand is to clear away the dishes after breakfast, lunch and dinner. And every time it's The Husband's turn to clear the table, my toothy smile always turns into a frown where I don't know what to do with the buck teeth threatening to explode from behind my small, thin lips. Because in The Husband's brain, "clear the table" translates as "leave the dishes in the sink and not in the dishwasher that is right next to the sink". Some day, I might just get off my Unicorn-That-Farts-Rainbows and slap some sense into him. Oh, First World Problems!


Inspiration source: Pinterest
This image specifically, if you must know.