Women and Washing Dishes : Two lessons

It was like a sudoku puzzle that somehow could not be solved. No matter how much detergent or the arrangement of dishes, dishes on the top rack of the dishwasher were not getting washed. Glasses looked like they were coated with the spit from chewing tobacco. I ignored the problem knowing that when I got some time I would call someone to repair this two year-old dishwasher.

Yesterday my wife said that she fixed it. What?? She did a Google search and thanks to some How-To YouTube videos, took it apart and found there was a place where dishwasher debris collected. This also happen to be the place where water is pumped to the top of the rack. By removing this gunk, everything works great now. Humbly, I was impressed.

Apparently over one hundred thirty years ago before there were dishwashers another woman was fed up and just acted without a man in sight. Josephine Cochran was fed up with her servants chipping her fine china while washing them. She was quoted as saying "If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I'll do it myself." She sat down at a table studied dishes and developed the first practical dishwasher.

While early attempts at dishwashing machines tried to scrub the dishes in a Jetson like fashion. She relied on hot soapy water and wire baskets to hold and clean the dishes. The machine then blew hot air to dry the dishes. The machine was able to wash and dry over 240 dishes at a time. Because of the size and cost, hotels were the early adopters. After her death, the Garis-Cochran Dishwashing Company eventually became Kitchenaid.



Lesson learned: Never stand in the way of a woman and dirty dishes.