So, in trying to help my wife out today with the chores, I did the dishes. Now, I hardly ever help out in this area (I have an aversion to ‘wet’), so it had been a while (years) since I had to put detergent in the dishwasher.
She wasn’t around, so as I was sorting through a staggering amount of chemicals under the sink, I was overwhelmed. I was looking for the dishwashing detergent (in liquid form, as I was so used to in a former life), and I stumbled upon an unusually large purple bottle I assumed was the proper detergent (it had the word “dishwashing” in its description). It was not…
The suds spewing forth out of the dishwasher brought to mind countless movies I’d seen where the well-meaning dolt, unpracticed in the ways of washing clothes, tries to help out with the laundry, but adds far too much detergent. I can’t exaggerate the amount of suds here. It was like that scene in The Shining, where blood pours forth from the elevator, and engulfs the entire lobby and furniture. Except, in this case, the blood was soap suds, and the lobby was my kitchen, however, the music was the same and was echoing in my head. I was terrified.
I panicked and tried running the rinse cycle, alone. It was like throwing gasoline on an inferno. I threw down towels everywhere. It was like shoveling sand. It just kept coming and coming and coming. I foresaw my whole day taken from me, as I removed all the dirty dishes, the racks and hand cleaned the entire dishwasher. “NO!” The eternal lazy bastard in my head cried… “There must be another way!”…
Then… somewhere in the recesses of my mind, Walter White from Breaking Bad broke through the horror. He had sage advice, for he was practiced in such chemically driven criminal scenarios. He gripped me by the shoulders, looked me dead in the eye with resolve, and said, “[del]Jesse[/del] cmyk, You can do this. Think! WHAT do you have on hand that can break down the surfactant of dish soap detergent?!”
The answer was immediate. Fabric Softener!
I ran downstairs to the laundry room, grabbed the Downy, and as I carefully plowed my way back through the slippery field of suds, I made it to the overflowing dishwasher. I poured a thimbleful in. Pushed the dishwasher closed. I squeamishly turned the rinse cycle back on. Sweat was beading on my forehead… I waited, as my entire kitchen smelled unnaturally like Apple Mango Tango™.
I bore it out for a full minute. Then, as I prepared for the worst, I opened the dishwasher, and to my relief, the dishwasher was completely without suds. I stared in wonder, as if a magical unicorn fart made all the carnage disappear. Snapping out of it, I let the rinse cycle run two times, then found the actual dishwasher “packets”, popped one in, set it to Normal Wash, and thus, the day was saved, the universe restored, and my dignity still as murky as ever.
