The goo in the machine.

For fuck's sake.

Here we go again. You know, I'd really rather be writing about lambs gambolling in the fields or the first daffodils or some other equally puerile concept.

Today's little extravaganza concerns the dishwasher. This is a machine descended from an invention patented in 1850. It is fairly common in households in the western hemisphere. We have one. I'm sure I've mentioned this previously. I mention these facts only by way of illustration: the dishwasher is not a new invention. It has existed longer than the computer, the mobile telephone and the Rolling Stones combined consecutively. Most homo sapien should be familiar with the modus operandi. One could almost expect homo erectus to be similarly capable.

The dishwasher is conventionally loaded up with the crockery and cutlery to be cleaned. It is charged with a dose of detergent. There are other substances that you can put in with the detergent, such as a particular salt to eradicate limescale, not to mention the non-ionic surfactants for the emulsification of lipids. There are enzymes as well. I like enzymes. I think enzymes are good. I understand that there are even some powders containing rutile available.

In any case the dishwasher is a labour saving device. Let machines do the work so that people have time to think. The thing is, most of the models I know about (and certainly the one installed in our particular kitchen) do not have fucking TEETH.

This is not a surprise to many people, but I will hazard a guess that there are some people out there who do not have the first clue about what actually transpires within a dishwasher. These are the same poor fools who think that milk is produced by supermarkets in pints and that steaks and cattle are unrelated: not somehow part of the same mysterious process of production. These people probably don't know very much about the refrigerator, and would be astonished to discover that the little light goes off when you close the door and are more likely than not to trap themselves inside a giant Kelvinator attempting to disprove this epiphanous fact.

These people are premium quality fucktards and I suspect that I am living with one, or perhaps a breeding pair.

Today I opened the dishwasher to put in my cereal bowl and coffee cup. I found inside a catalogue of horrors. The filter was full of lemon seeds and chunks of what was probably capsicum (I say capsicum you say red pepper). I think that there may also have been some stray penne. This conglomerate shit was slimy and feculent. I had to empty the filter. But it pained me to put my french cuffs into the machine lest I smear my cuff-links with partially digested putrefaction. So much so that I danced a little dance of squeamishness and rage.

Also inside were spoons encrusted with semi-dried pasta, bowls and plates smeared thick with Christ-only-knows-what. And a cooking pot with about half an inch of spooge-like cous-cous (Why, God? Why?). This craptastic motherlode of destruction would have done for the machine. And no doubt my third of the bond.

You see, good people of the blogosphere, when you put your shit into a dishwasher to be cleaned, it cannot chew the chunks you leave on the plates. There isn't a little Harry Potter in there with a magic fucking wand ("Expungio!" is categorically not a functioning magic spell). Hot water and chemicals do what they can to dissolve the filth, and this sludge must pass through the filter. Which you must clean. Regularly. But even the most diligent enzymes and surfactants are unable to deal with whole tortellini and severed fish-fingers.

Today's reason I am re-reading the escape clause on my lease is: the moron in this flat who is so extravagantly stupid as to equate to a malicious saboteur of both the kitchen generally and my bond particularly. This cretin is either an actual clear and present danger to itself and those it lives with, or a smiling assassin, bent on driving me into a blind and psychotic rage, forced to attempt some radical open heart surgery with a carving knife upon the nearest fuckwit to trespass across my path.


[sadly no picture atm... this will be amended the moment the picture posting panel performs precisely and promptly]