My mother frequently
sang the Washing Machine song, which she apparently composed, since I’ve never
heard it anywhere else. As I remember it:
The washing machine, the washing machine is Mommy’s bestest friend.
If I didn’t have my washing machine, I’d come to no good end.
Oh, I’d wash & I’d wash, & I’d scrub & I’d scrub all the live
long day,
‘Til by night I’d be so tired that I couldn’t go out to play.
Many times her bestest
friend was a fickle friend and had to be repaired. Somehow those were the times
my siblings and I always chose to play bakery in the back yard outside our home
in Iselin, New Jersey. Four kids making mud pies out back and one baby making
his own version of mud pies in cloth diapers.
No wonder my mom
worshiped her washer.
My appliance idolatry is
focused elsewhere.
Growing up, my sister
Taffy or I occasionally mentioned to our dad the family needed a dishwasher. To
which he always gave the same hilarious (to him, anyway) reply, “We have two
dishwashers, you and your sister!” Cue laughter.
And so the unjust child
labor continued for years. David and Brett, my older brothers, had intermittent
and seasonal chores. Take out the garbage a few times a week. Rake leaves in
autumn. Shovel snow in winter. Taffy and I had the daily monotony of
dishwashing.
As the baby, Tim’s only
job was to be cute, very easily accomplished with his uncut golden curls.
Taffy and I found ways
to endure the boredom as we took turns washing and drying. We created our own
version of Tip-It. Whoever washed would precariously pile the pots, pans, and
dishes in the drainer so that whoever dried had to carefully remove each item
without knocking the whole business onto the counter and floor.
(To watch the original
TV commercial for Tip-It, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YmnK9F6rf8.
Doesn’t it make you long for 1965?)
I learned years later
that my mom cringed whenever Taffy and I did the dishes, as she watched soapy
water drip down her brand new kitchen cabinets in her new split-level house in
Park Ridge, New Jersey. She would have rather done them herself, but my dad was
strict. One summer evening we failed to do the dishes immediately after supper.
Dad found us—gasp!—watching TV. Instead of sending us to the kitchen, he gave
us each a licking and sent us to bed. My mom had to wash the dishes herself. In
retrospect, I think we were all happy with the outcome.
Another fun game was to
neatly put the silverware away in the drawer…and then SLAM it shut. Raucous
laughter erupted when we opened the drawer and saw its disheveled contents.
We’d straighten the silverware again and SLAM. It amused every time.
One summer my parents
went to California to visit my mom’s brothers. My dad’s sister, Laurel, came to
babysit us, bringing along our cousins, Jeffrey and Robin. When Aunt Laurel
learned Taffy and I washed supper dishes, she decided we could wash them after
breakfast and lunch, too. Of course Jeffrey and Robin didn’t have to do
anything since they were guests.
Little did we know, Aunt
Laurel was sitting on the back patio after lunch, listening to an annoying
series of sounds repeatedly wafting out the kitchen window: SLAM. Clink Clash. Hahahaha. SLAM. Clink
Clash. Hahahaha. Cousin Robin stood in the kitchen, wistfully watching our fun.
We graciously offered her a turn.
SLAM. Clink Clash.
Hahahaha. Aunt Laurel burst into the kitchen. “Who is making that racket?!
Robin?!!” It’s hard to say which I enjoyed more, the game or Robin’s
punishment.
As we matured, we
stopped slamming the silverware drawer, and started the singing game. I would
start singing and end abruptly in the middle of a line. Whatever word I last
sang had to be the first word in the next song started by Taffy. We went back
and forth using pop songs, choir anthems, and Broadway show tunes.
Fast forward to my young
adulthood: Living in a church parsonage in
Pennsylvania with my husband and our four sons. Preparing many meals and
washing lots of dishes. I enlist my two oldest boys as dishwashers and
dryers…and watch the soapy water dribble down the wooden cabinet door.
I naively mention to a
church board member how nice it would be to have a dishwasher installed in the
parsonage kitchen. His answer and laughter echo Dad’s decades earlier. Somehow
the conversation comes to the attention of an older church lady who says to me,
“I have a portable dishwasher that I only use once a year when I houseclean my
kitchen cupboards. Would you like to have it?”
No church council was
consulted to canonize Saint Irene of West Chillisquaque Township. I blessed her
name and prayed for her health and happiness every time I connected that hefty
appliance to the kitchen faucet. Since it drained into the sink, I would put
greasy fry pans or grimy Corningware in the path of the draining hot soapy
water. They’d be almost clean by the time I had to hand wash them.
Now I own a home with a
built-in dishwasher. I thank God for it every day. It makes me 99% delirious
with happiness.
That missing 1% would be
achieved if I could interest other family members in my cult of dishwasher devotion.
Don’t they understand idols need to be fed? It doesn’t require a high
priestess; anyone can feed it plates and bowls.
However, not everyone
can load a dishwasher properly. To my logical female mind, it seems that a
person who empties it—and doesn’t suffer short term memory loss—should be able
to fill it. Just remember the arrangement of the clean dishes you removed and arrange
the dirty dishes in the same pattern. I usually end up rearranging their random
placement of dishes, but I’m happy when my sons interact with the appliance in
any way.
Whenever I go away for
more than a day, I remind my sons the dishwasher will have to be run while I am
gone. I cannot come home from southern New Jersey or western Pennsylvania or
Jamaica to turn it on. They seem to grasp this, but they continue to find one
aspect confusing: There are little transparent packets of measured detergent;
the material dissolves, releasing the detergent. And there are little blocks of
compressed detergent wrapped in crinkly plastic which doesn’t dissolve and which
must be removed before placing in dishwasher. Which kind do I use? Whichever is
on sale at the Surplus Outlet. Although the packaging of both brands gives
clear usage instructions, my extremely intelligent and highly literate sons
don’t read packages. So they have been surprised to open the dishwasher and see
the little wrapped detergent block, its red eye staring up at them.
Can I get any
participation from my highly successful and overly educated husband? (He has an
Associate’s degree, a Bachelor’s degree, and two Master’s degrees.) Rather than
put away clean dishes and load dirty ones, he will hand wash a kitchen full of
plates and cookware and diabolically pile them in the drainer in a manner that
makes the childhood sisters look like amateur Tip-It players. This treachery
triples my workload: I have to put away drainer dishes and dishwasher dishes
and then sweep up all the glasses that crashed on the floor.
Nevertheless, 99% is a
good grade in delirious happiness or anything else. I’m so happy I sing about
the appliance I love.
God save my dishwasher,
Protect its jet-stream clean,
Built by Maytag.
May every fork and dish
Crusted with tuna fish
Be spotless. That’s my wish.
God save my dishwasher.
Epilogue
The Maytag died right before
I left for five days at St. Davids Christian Writers Conference. I posted a warning
sign on her door: Broken! Clean your own
dishes. I bought large packages of paper plates and plastic cups for my menfolk,
and then enjoyed not cooking and not washing dishes at Grove City College.
A week ago, Dan the Appliance
Man installed my new Frigidaire dishwasher. I’m singing on a new song.
Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you…
