Readers, I’m going to do something selfish this week. I’m going to write this solely so that I can see my words in print, clip them from the paper, and hang this over our kitchen sink. If you’ll indulge me, maybe you might have a desire to do the same.
Let’s talk about the Dishwasher Fairy.
You might be wondering, as you stand over the sink with your 98% finished bowl of Lucky Charms, what to do with that bowl. Or, as is more likely the case, you’re not thinking at all. You will just leave it to the Dishwasher Fairy and set the bowl down.
You know the Dishwasher Fairy, right? He or she is the being who creeps into the kitchen under the dark of night and takes the dirty dishes and bowls from the sink along the 2 1/2 feet journey to the empty dishwasher right next to the sink. That’s the silver thing with all the buttons underneath the microwave. The Dishwasher Fairy, you think, works for free and lives to take these forks and spoons and cups on their journey to Cleantown.
I have news for you. There is no such thing as a Dishwasher Fairy. He is a work of fiction – just like the Laundry Fairy and the Car on Empty Fairy. He is just as much a piece of your imagination as a contending Missouri football team, or a sale at the Apple store.
Here’s what actually happens:
You’ll place your bowl in the sink with about an ounce of milk still in the bowl. Then tomorrow, you’ll place your dinner plate on top. And the next day, you’ll put a couple of cups and a pizza tray on top of those items. Frustrated after several long days at work, one of your parents empties and then loads the dishwasher – even though you’ve been asked to do so every day since April. WE are the Dishwasher Fairy. And no, I don’t wear the tights.
After three days, that cereal bowl at the bottom of the sink has curdled. That’s likely the smell you smell when you got home from school today. It stinks a lot less when you put it two and a half feet to the right in the special dish cleaning robot. Maybe that would make it more appealing for you? If we called it the iWasher or the Microsoft XDish or something?
So, non-adult human, I have something very important to bestow on you. Prepare yourself. YOU are now the Dishwasher Fairy. You are the ambassador of pots and pans. You are the emissary of plates and butter knives. YOU bear the responsibility for emptying and loading the dishwasher every day until you leave this place.
This responsibility is not given lightly. It has been handed down from generation to generation because that’s how we roll – some call it “the call to the Major Leagues.” Others just call it “delegation.” Either way, embrace it, Dishwasher Fairy. Your job begins… now.
(When he isn’t Dishwasher Fairy, Chris Kamler is on Twitter as @TheFakeNed or on YouTube or Facebook or Snapchat or Instagram)