February 16, 2005
When my ex N.T. and I moved in together, we bought several appliances with which to furnish our new home, including but not limited to a portable dishwasher. This seemed the height of luxury to us, as we lived in a huge but ramshackle apartment in the middle of nowhere in Washington Heights. For those of you who have never operated a portable dishwasher before, this is how it works: there's a hose running out of the dishwasher that you attach to the faucet of the sink in your kitchen/bathroom; you turn on the faucet at the same time as the dishwasher, which somehow possesses the native intelligence to tell the faucet when to shut off. N.T. also bought a hideous dish-drying rack, which I kept hiding in progressively more obscure cabinets and which he kept finding and returning to a place of honor on the kitchen counter. I figured that if we had a dishwasher, however second-class, a drying rack was redundant.
When N.T. moved out, he left the dishwasher but took the drying rack with him; honestly, it was almost worth losing the one to get rid of the other. One evening I went to do the dishes unredundantly--it may have been after this dinner--and realized that I didn't have any dishwashing powder. "Well," I thought, "I can either go out to the grocery store and get more, which would take time and energy and money, or I can improvise." So I filled the dishwasher with hand soap, turned it on, and went to watch TV.
When I returned to the kitchen an hour later, imagine my surprise when I found the floor covered in what seemed like three feet of foam but was actually two feet of foam and a foot of water. "Well," I thought, "I can either clean this up or just leave it where it is and deal with it in the morning." So I went to bed.
When I woke up the next morning and went into the kitchen, the floor was both completely dry and cleaner than it had been since the day I'd moved in two years earlier.
What I learned from this experience is that if I ignore my problems, they will go away.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:28 PM
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Comments
1) Patrick said (on 02/17/05 at 01:00 AM):
Wow, I wish my problems would go away if I simply ignored them. So um where did a foot deep of water go to overnight? I didn't know New York was that dry to absorb so much water.
2) H's H said (on 02/17/05 at 02:20 AM):
Ditto with your washing machine too! I once put in too much soap powder which resulted in a whole bunch of foam trying to find its way out from the soap powder inlet! (I use a front load machine.)
3) Mr.D. said (on 02/17/05 at 07:39 AM):
Hi Faustus - Troubled Diva is 43 today (17/2) - pay a visit?
4) Jess said (on 02/17/05 at 07:42 AM):
Um, okay Faustus. If that works... :)
5) campbell said (on 02/17/05 at 09:01 AM):
Were the downstairs neighbours looking at you a bit funny thereafter?
6) Faustus, M.D. said (on 02/17/05 at 10:43 AM):
Patrick: Apparently this was the "wet" side of the building; my bathroom ceiling collapsed regularly under the weight of the water that had accumulated from the shower on the floor above. So I assume it just joined the rest of the water hanging out within the walls.
H's H: So what did you do in response? I hope you adopted my "ignore your problems" philosophy.
Mr. D: Done! And thank you for the alert.
Jess: Well, it hasn't failed me yet. Oh, wait, yes, it totally has.
campbell: I assume they just thought it was part of the "soak the tenants out" campaign the landlords seemed to be running.
7) Kevin said (on 02/18/05 at 05:15 AM):
I am still eagerly awaiting to hear how your performance went.
Still, I love your anecdotes.
8) Jalal said (on 02/18/05 at 08:24 AM):
Does this work with problematic people as well?
9) Michelle said (on 02/18/05 at 08:44 AM):
Faustus!
I'm getting married! Rejoice! However it will be in the bleak, dreary, howling month of March. boo.
I felt the need to tell it to a complete stranger, just to see how it looks on someone else's 'paper'.
It will be in NY, but in Westchester. If only I knew you, you'd be invited. Although...
Do you think that when we begin to have problems and I ignore them...?
10) Christopher said (on 02/18/05 at 10:55 AM):
I did this when I was at university. I improvised with a cup full of Persil, causing the dishwasher to excitedly dump a bunch of foam on to the kitchen floor. To evade the censure of my housemates I blamed Carol, the quiet student who also lived with us, but who we all hated. What I learned from this experience is that if I blame someone else I can stay out of trouble. I also learned that cutlery tastes foul when washed with laundry detergent.
11) mushlette said (on 04/27/05 at 02:44 PM):
...the last sentence of this post made me laugh out loud so heartily that the Chinese guy sitting behind me here at work got up to see if I needed anything.
MY GOD that was funny!
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