Broken dishwasher is path to parenting opportunities

If you ever want to see the look of pure panic, look into the eyes of a mother with a house full of children and an error light on the dishwasher.

When you stop and think about it, we have come to rely on our appliances more than we think. When is the last time you’ve toasted a piece of bread not in a toaster? Or scrubbed a load of laundry by hand? Or quickly reheated a cold cup of morning coffee on the stove? These are not impossible things, but we feel they are because we’ve been spoiled by machines to do them for us.

I, for one, am not complaining. I have a distinct memory of stringing clotheslines around our backyard one summer when the dryer was on the fritz and praying that someone's underwear didn't catch a breeze and drift into the neighbor's yard. But laundry can be put off a few days or hauled away to a friend's house. Dishes are another story.

On any given morning when there are five family members under my roof, three of them drink juice and four of them drink coffee. Two of the four coffee drinkers use spoons to stir in things to mask the taste of the coffee. That's nine dishes to wash already, not including the dried bowl of oatmeal that someone didn't have time to rinse, all before my eyes are even fully open.

From there, it's snacks and drinks and then someone wants to make guacamole and someone makes mac and cheese and while I’m quite happy that our young adult children are self-sufficient in their culinary skills, I am not happy that we don't have a magic elf that can do all the pots and prep dishes. I mean, we DID have one when the dishwasher was working, but not I suppose we need a real magic elf.

Until it gets repaired (unless my husband gives his stamp of approval on eating all our meals in fancy restaurants), I will buckle down and do the dishes along with the help of the rest of the crew. It’ll be good old fashioned family fun time. We can crank up the tunes and sing along while they learn the importance of pre-rinsing. We’ll have in-depth conversations about how wasteful it is to use paper plates and plastic silverware and call it on-the-job training for adulthood.

It’ll be one of those "when life gives you lemons" moments, but you don't use 18 tools to make the lemonade.

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Reach Karrie McAllister at [email protected].