Zen and the Art of Dishware Maintanance

If doing dishes were a sport it’d be prison soap dropping; everybody dreads it and it’s not actually a sport. Yet the importance of proper dishware maintenance cannot be overstated.

The 20^th Century brought us a great advancement in dishware maintenance (no, not Mexicans). The automatic dishwasher freed mankind from the burden of cleaning up after himself, the ultimate goal in the whole of human progression. But the automatic dishwasher has not been without its faults.

The primary con of the automatic dishwasher is that it has softened our resolve - and our hands - to manually wash dishes. This is problematic because many apartments and/or living quarters still do not have automatic dishwashers, especially those that feature several 20 somethings occupying the bedrooms (multiple people sharing dishware further heightens the importance of clean plates, utensils etc.). As a result, an entire generation has moved into our cities without a thorough understanding of how to manually wash dishes - and the dishwasher is partially to blame for all of this.

More to blame however, is sloth. Honestly, it’s just not that hard to clean a fucking plate. It’s just not that hard. Yet everywhere I go plates are piled like skyscrapers in sinks and there’s more crud on cups in cupboards that in the grimiest of sewers. This is really a matter of lack of effort.

There is no such thing as a kind of clean plate and no reason to partially clean a plate. If I’m going to bother putting a sponge to dishware it is going to be clean when I am finished. It’s a character flaw to hold a contrary opinion.

Further, it’s not just the top of a plate or the inside of a glass that needs to be cleaned. When one puts a plate in a cupboard it is generally on top of another plate, logic dictates that the bottom of the invading plate must be clean to maintain the cleanliness of the initial plate. And a glass generally has a person putting their lips on the inside and the outside of its rim, therefore the rim needs to be cleaned - inside and out.

Dishware Maintenance is not rocket science and its not gang anal raping but it is an important aspect of comfortable living. Think about that next time you pick up a sponge (or a bar of soap).