Not remotely exciting news just in. A septuagenarian has gone viral after sharing a “life changing” tip to ensure crockery comes out of the dishwasher dry. People have been practically climaxing with excitement. “How did I not know?” they cry. “Game changer!” I, however, have tried it and regret to say there has been no orgasming in my kitchen over bone-dry side plates, no howls of ecstasy over a non-dripping fish slice.
According to Babs, a grandmother on TikTok, you open the door, drape a “terry cloth dish towel” over it and close it again so half the towel is inside, then wait five minutes, presumably while it absorbs the moisture. But it didn’t work for me. Nothing dishwasher-related ever does. Everything was still wet and smelt faintly of damp dog and despair, just as normal. If you want my dishwasher tip, it is this: bin it. Take it to the tip and walk away clicking your heels. Finally you’ll be free of a time-wasting psychopath that laughs in your face. A fellow dishwasher-hater says they should “not be called white goods but shite goods” and I couldn’t agree more.
I feel the same about them as I do those funnel-type devices for women to urinate in when caught short. Both sound great but are more trouble than they’re worth, for who wants to be left holding a cone of urine at the bus stop? Far from being a labour-saving device, dishwashers steal your time, doubling, nay tripling, the problem as you scrape, maybe pre-rinse if you have lost your mind and don’t have a willing dog, stack, then restack as the plates bend forward and the wine glasses are always too tall for the top bit so you have to lay them at an angle whereupon they emerge a) broken or b) half full of grey water that smells like drains. You open the door and the steam turns your face purple like an alcoholic colonel. Then you have to unload and dry it all, a preposterous futility. And why are dishwasher tablets so expensive? They contain about 2p worth of soap powder yet seem to think they’re blood diamonds.
I can hear your outraged cries from here. I understand. Dishwashers have a cultish following, Stockholm syndrome victims who hail them as the greatest domestic invention ever when they are obviously the greatest con trick. I know because I’m married to one, a dishwasher disciple who when our old one broke (rejoice!), immediately ordered another, zombie-like, and resumed his tender love affair, obsessing over whether the spinning arms would be blocked by the big casserole dish. But I’ve done the maths. Even the laughable “rapid” cycle takes an hour after an age of interminable loading. Washing up in the sink takes, what, 15 minutes tops? And you don’t get left with those crusty bits that are now blasted on so you have to hand-wash them with a Brillo anyway. Your plates can air dry on the draining board and you don’t have a face like a melted welly.
I admit, for I’m nothing but fair, that dishwashers make wine glasses sparkle. Nobody likes a smeary flute. But they take so tediously long. Just like washing machines and their drama-queenish two-hour cycles and choice of 14 settings such as “freshen” when most people use just one (doesn’t all washing “freshen”?). When I was a student I just had a standalone spin dryer and life was simpler (my university days were, as you can see, wild). Now people tell me that for the dishwasher system to work properly you need two of them plus two sets of crockery so you need never unload. So a “labour-saving” gadget that not only steals your time but doubles your financial outlay? Face it, good people. Your dishwasher is trolling you and trolling you good.
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It might never open again
The Vagina Museum may soon be homeless so, no beating about the bush, any bright ideas for new premises?
Camden Market isn’t renewing its lease but has offered space “on the top floor” which the museum’s staff say will feel like vulvas are being shoved on the top shelf (yes, those mucky mags in newsagents still sell, amazingly, despite free internet porn, go figure that).
But no silly suggestions like Crotch Crescent in Oxford please, because life never works out this splendidly. It would add to the gaiety of the nation if it could be homed in, say, Fanny Hands Lane, Lincolnshire, or Fine Bush Lane, Ruislip, but the killjoys would get in a flap.
The museum might have enjoyed more help if it hadn’t angered many women by using phrases such as “people with vaginas”. “Have you considered identifying as the Penis Museum?” wrote one on Twitter. But let’s think positively, for I think I have the perfect address for a new berth. It is Lady Lawn in Somerset. You’re welcome.
What goes on in your garden
How would you feel if you came home from work every day to find your rattan garden furniture slightly askew? If by your table were two cigarette butts yet — drum roll — you do not smoke?
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A woman has revealed that when she installed a secret camera she was astonished to see her neighbours in the flats opposite had been scaling the wall and lounging in her garden for six hours a day. This is a modern-day Goldilocks and the three bears parable. “Who’s been sleeping on my Lafuma?” It’s almost a TV show; Jeremy Vine confronting the culprits with the evidence.
I don’t know what I’d do. People have suggested using itching powder, superglue or a big dog. I might ask friends to take a day off work so we could all be doing naked yoga when they arrive. The leg-behind-head pose ideally.
The mercy is that she doesn’t have a hot tub. Imaging finding out far too late that for weeks you’ve been marinating in neighbour soup.
