Every Day’s an Adventure

When I grabbed the bowl from the dishwasher this morning, I looked at it to be sure it was clean. I even moved it around a little to see how the light caught the inner surface of the bowl, which glistened with a sparkle that could only mean it had been run through a dishwashing cycle.

So I poured my Grape-Nuts into the bowl, added a chopped-up apple, and ate my breakfast. Somewhere just past the mid-way point, though, I noticed a slight roughness on the edge of the bowl. A closer inspection revealed it to be a small spot of dried lentil soup, dinner from two nights prior.

“That’s strange,” I whispered to myself, and I resumed eating. Our most recent brand of detergent isn’t quite as effective as our previous one was. The occasional stain seems to get by. But no harm, no foul, as they say.

Like I always do after eating a bowl of cereal, I set the dish on the floor and called the dog to come lap up the remains. “Pre-wash” we call it; our ritual after every breakfast and dinner is to allow the dog to spit shine the dishes before we place them in the dishwasher, fill it up with some good antibacterial soap, and let it run.

That’s when it occurred to me what I’d just done.