Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Dishwasher Rant

Why is it that every housekeeper we have ever employed has no clue how to load a dishwasher? This is a source both of annoyance and perpetual mystery to my husband and me. Now, I'm not trying to be racist, classist or otherwise politically incorrect--in fact, I'm about as wracked with liberal guilt as anyone.

(I'm not sure my dear hubby is as wracked as I am, but he is overall a person of integrity and fairness, willing to judge by performance above all, and thus is far less prejudiced than many folks I know. Except maybe when it comes to intelligence. He does not suffer fools gladly, or even tolerably well. This quality--the integrity/fairness quality--may also be attributable to the fact that his parents sent him to a sleep-away camp primarily for poor inner-city youth when he grew up. To this day, we have no idea what his folks were thinking, or if they even knew what the camp was. In any event, I think it's safe to say he was pretty much the only shrimpy, jewish nerd at that camp. He quickly learned what he needed to do . . .he befriended the biggest and baddest guys at camp by ghost-writing their love letters for them; in return he got protection and a sort of respected mascot status. Whatever else he may or may not be, my husband is not a fool, and his survival instincts are spot on.)

Now, I understand that not all of our housekeepers may have had a lot of personal experience with dishwashers. But you'd think after years and years of working for us and seeing how we very logically and consistently load the dishwasher ourselves, they'd figure it out. And not one of them ever has. Or is it just their passive-aggressive way of sticking it to the man? Who knows.

And yes, both my husband and I are fully aware how petty this complaint is. But we just can't stop being irked--no matter how hard we try.

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