My dishwasher broke this morning

My dishwasher broke this morning. I went to unload the dishes and they were disgustingly caked with dried bits of who-knows-what. We bought the dishwasher because it was supposed to be one of those never-rinse-your-dishes kind of things so we succumbed to the fancy sales pitch. But they lied.

So I filled the sink up with soapy hot water and started putting dishes in there to soak and pretty soon I was up to my elbows in sparkling suds washing and scrubbing and then I realized it actually felt good.
It felt wholesome and healthy and brought back so many memories of standing by so many sinks doing the same thing. My parents had four dishwashers (each of us girls reluctant and complaining) and for all of the first years of my marriage I did dishes by hand. After family parties we always end up with lots of dishes to wash by hand and, of course, doing Thanksgiving dishes is almost a written-in part of the holiday itself.

But it doesn’t seem like it should be a treat does it?

But our Granddaughters clamor to help wash dishes if they see me doing it. They drag the beaten-up old brown bench over and stand bright-eyed, armed with their dishcloths ready to dry, dry, dry away.

I never see their bright blue eyes light up in anticipation of loading the dishwasher. I never stand dreamily at the dishwasher watching the morning awaken the side yard and illuminate the just unfurling ash leaves with tender golden color.

Well, I have dishes to dry and put away but I wanted to tell you the big news. My dishwasher broke this morning. Aren’t I lucky?