Took me 3 years to figure out I was loading my dishwasher wrong

I always just tossed everything in however it fit and ran it. Dishes came out with spots and crud stuck on sometimes. Then my sister visited and watched me load it. She pointed out I was blocking the spray arm with a big baking sheet. Now I angle everything down and put bowls on the sides. First load after her tip came out spotless. Has anyone else had a simple household thing suddenly click after years of doing it wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

webb.ben21d ago

Spend your whole life assuming there's only one way to do something and then one day someone shows you a tiny tweak that changes everything. That's been happening to me more and more since I hit 30. How you load a dishwasher, what setting to use on a toaster, the right way to fold a fitted sheet - all this stuff we just guess at until someone who actually knows what they're doing comes along. It's like we're all walking around with these small inefficiencies piled up in our daily routines without ever questioning them. Makes you wonder what else we're doing slightly wrong that could be fixed in five seconds.

jesse_green5521d ago

Hold on though, is this REALLY that big of a deal? I mean, who CARES if my fitted sheet is a wrinkled mess at the bottom of the closet? It's not like anyone's inspecting my linen closet for a Martha Stewart photo shoot. I think people get way too caught up in finding the "right" way to do every tiny thing when half the time the old way works just fine. You waste more time worrying about the "right" way to load a dishwasher than you ever save by doing it perfectly. Honestly, I'd rather spend that five seconds doing something I actually enjoy than stressing about toast settings.

sandraflores21d ago

You ever have one of those moments where you realize you've been making your own life harder for no reason and feel a little silly about it? I was about 35 before someone told me you're supposed to put your plates and bowls in the dishwasher facing the center, not just wherever they land. Felt like I'd been missing a secret handshake this whole time. Now my dishes actually come out clean and I don't have to scrub crusted-on oatmeal off of coffee cups by hand.