“Samson,” I said, noticing the morning dishes in the sink, “didn’t I ask you to load the dishwasher when you got home from school?”
“I thought you said to unload the dishwasher,” he replied.
I’d not considered that there might have already been dishes in the dishwasher. As I’ve explained before, when the boys are at their mother’s I’ll often use a single dish, cleaning it in the sink between uses (or just rinsing it out in cases where the “single dish” is a large tumbler) and a good, long, time may pass before I open my dishwasher. The point is the dishes in the dishwasher might have been clean had I loaded it, started it, and simply forgot to empty it – or – they might have been dirty had I simply loaded it and forgot to start it or loaded it and set it to Rinse Only.
There was only one way to find out.
“Were the dishes in the dishwasher clean?” I asked.
“Some of them were.”
So, it would seem, I’d at least set it to rinse.
I hate when I can’t tell if they’re clean or not!!
Sad thing is, I’ve done this … and I’d loaded the beast.
Sybil: We give them the lick test here. If they taste like food, they need rewashed. If not, they go in the cupboard.
Nat: I, unfortunately, have done this same thing.
Usually if there is any remnants on the door it’s a clear sign they are still dirty. The dishes may look clean but that looks like spilled coffee on the inside of the door. Bingo dirty!
I’ve been known to do this before. Then I get really mad and rerun the stupid thing. This is why I hate having anything to do with dishes.