ArcaMax

No matter what I make for dinner, cleanup in our house is a pretty speedy affair because we have three dishwashers. First, there is the electronic one, which does a pretty good job, assuming you prewash the dishes before you run them through the dishwasher. Then there's dishwasher No. 2 -- my husband. He's generally responsible for the handwash: the pots, pans and cooking utensils that don't go in the dishwasher. Having spent a summer at sleepaway camp when he was 16 as, you guessed it, a dishwasher, my husband considers himself an expert in the field. At the end of a meal, he will throw himself into his work with such gusto that it almost seems like he's participating in an Olympic event.

The third dishwasher in the house is the dog. Of all three, the dog ranks best for getting the dishes completely free of food, although I wouldn't want to eat off the dishes he cleans. The problem, though, is not so much the dishes he licks when they're dirty. It's the dishes he licks when they're clean. For some reason, in addition to a penchant for chicken, carrots and socks, the dog has developed a taste for dishware. I thought that since he knew the dishes were dirty going in, maybe he theorized they would also be dirty coming out. Who knows. I don't speak dog, or I'd ask him.

Whatever his motivation, the upshot was that whenever I went to empty the dishwasher, I had to body block the dog to get to the dishes before he did. Unfortunately, the dog was at dishwasher level, and I was not, so he had the upper hand, er, paw, in the race to the dishes.

"Beat it, Bowie," I barked at him one morning as I lowered the dishwasher door. He ignored me. He had been trained to "sit," "stay" and "fetch me ice cream," but "beat it" was not part of his repertoire. He moved a little closer to the dishwasher, and I tried to put myself between the dog and the dishes. It occurred to me that most dog owners have to worry about their dogs chasing squirrels, not licking the clean dishes, and I marveled at how unique our dog was, which could also be a euphemism for weird.

"Bowie, move," I said more aggressively. This time he listened ... and moved to the other side of the dishwasher, where he had better access. Technically, he did what I'd said, so I couldn't be mad. I quickly stepped over the dishwasher door to where he was and stood in front of him.

I picked up one of the dinner dishes to move it out of his reach.

"Listen, buddy," I said, waving a dish at him. "These dishes are clean. There is no food on them. They are an empty promise of a snack that has long since been washed away by time and Cascade. This is not a dish. It's a dream. Time to let go."

The dog admitted defeat and finally moved away from the machine. I stepped around him to get back into a better unloading position, failing to notice that I had created a small puddle on the floor from the not-quite-dry dishes. Naturally, I slipped on the puddle, lost my balance, and hurled the clean dish onto the floor, where it broke into a million pieces.

I shrugged.

One less dish for the dog to lick.

========

Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

----

Copyright 2024 Creators Syndicate Inc.