Dear Amy: For years, my wife and I had a dishwasher “minibattle.” She would put in glasses with milk pouring out of them, put in plates with food and gravy running off them and put plates and pans in backward so the water would never touch them.
When the machine was unloaded, the complaints would start about how the dishwasher cleaned poorly.
Well, after years of this I found the solution. I got to the dishwasher first every day, and in no time it just became normal procedure for me to do it. Problem solved.
One day at work, I brought this up and was floored to discover that nearly every man I worked with was frustrated with variations of the “dishwasher dilemma.” We would all rinse and load efficiently while our wives would give everything the old heave-ho and just shut the door.
What gives? Are women just wired oddly on this issue? Will you give us an open-minded response, or defend your gender to the death?!
– Mike in Wisconsin
Dear Mike: Let me get this straight. Women everywhere are loading their dishwashers improperly, thus driving their husbands to race to take over this piece of household drudgery? Hmmm. I can’t imagine why we would do that.
But I’ll give you a little hint: “Problem solved.” Some men take longer than others to take over the loathsome loading chore, but when they do, we ladies exchange our secret handshake, clink our martini glasses and congratulate one another on a job well done.
We can be pretty crafty when we want to be.
Shhhh. Don’t tell.
…
Dear Amy: Recently, I had to go out of town for a week.
I gave my girlfriend the key to my house so she could watch my dog.
When she picked me up from the airport, she said we had to pull over and talk before we got to my house.
She let me know she found love letters. She thought I was cheating on her. I told her I have never cheated on her (which I have not) and that those were old letters. She did not believe me.
These letters were in the bottom drawer of an entertainment center that she had to search for.
I am disgusted that I cannot trust her. Now I cannot even look at her, and we are not speaking.
– Confused
Dear Confused: I am completely on your side here. Even if a person is unscrupulous enough to snoop through someone else’s belongings, that person should be smart enough to keep her findings to herself. You are right to say, “Buh-bye.”
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