Okay, I'll come right out and say it: our dishwasher is a bully. It has a mind of its own and if you don't treat it the way it wants to be treated, so much for you! It will return your dishes in just as bad shape as they were when you put them in, if not worse.
When I worked at a furniture store in Oklahoma City, the cleaning lady actually filled the sink with soap and water, washed the dishes by hand and then loaded the dishwasher that was in the break room. It could be that my dishwasher is holding out for this easing of its labor but so far I have stood firm on that. I do rinse the dishes and try to load in a way that will be comfortable for it, though. I actually like to load a dishwasher; it's kind of like working a puzzle, with different pieces every time. I've always heard that it should be full before you run it for Maximum Efficiency but lately my dishwasher has been saying "Efficient, Shmefficent!" and so I put a few less things in and give it more room.
I have tried taking out some of the parts that might be bothering it, like that propeller thing in the middle, and then removing the screen thing and washing it separately, hoping that would be like taking a pebble out of a shoe, or scratching its back, hoping to put it in a little better mood. Sometimes that works, but only for a short while.
We had a very nice friendship in the beginning. I would turn it on last thing at night and listen to it run through its cycles after we had gone to bed. This was so it wouldn't have to share the water supply with everyone in the neighborhood and not have to work so hard. Recently I saw on the news that some dishwashers have been recalled because they actually caught fire and officials advised never running the thing when you were gone or asleep. I took this to be a thinly veiled threat from appliances everywhere, so now I am trying to be more careful. I have stopped short of sitting in front of it and watching it go through its cycles, though.
Don't let this get out, but when we lived in a different house I actually washed dishes by hand for a whole year and just drained them in the broken dishwasher so I could save up for a Maytag, which I had heard was a very loyal, hardworking machine. We moved from that house eventually. Perhaps the dishwasher felt it had been abandoned and the word spread. All I know is I know Maytags; a Maytag was a friend of mine, and this, sir, is not a Maytag.
You may think this seems like appeasement, but today I made another conciliatory move. I bought the dishwasher its own bubble bath. You're supposed to put it in the machine with no dishes (you wouldn't want to stress it during its spa treatment), let it run a few minutes, then bask in the bubbles for four hours before you request that it do any labor. I hope it likes it.
I've done all I can think of. I just want to say to it "Can't we all just get along?"
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