She's always hated them. She doesn't see the purpose of using gallons of water to wash dishes. And I get how it takes slightly longer to get the dishes clean. But during that time it frees up your hands so you can get more than one task done. She doesn't see it that way though. She sees them as wasteful devices for the lazy good-for-nothings.

I've never had a dishwasher until moving to my new house. I used to have one growing up for a short time. My mom ran it twice a year without dishes. Eventually she had it removed because she was embarrassed to have it in the kitchen where people would see. She insisted that people would judge her for it and say she was lazy. Literally no one judges people for having dishwashers other than her.

First thing she does when she sees my new house? Tell me I need to have the dishwasher removed asap before anyone else sees.

Also she's fine with laundry washers and dryers. I don't get her deal with it.

@Ruby:
I know, rather hypocritical. She also harshly judges you if your toilet plunger is visible in your bathroom or if you have a window air-conditioning unit. It's all unsightly and undignified.

@Starry:
@Ruby:
We always kept the plunger in the garage.

@Ruby:
We've never had the toilet overflow actually. But I was always told to turn the shut off valve behind the toilet if that happened then get the plunger.

I go on vacation in the summer with extended family (everyone staying in one rented house near the beach, keeps it more affordable for everyone), and there's one woman who will just stand there and do all the dishes for every meal because she will pull everyone's dishes out of the dishwasher and wash them by hand. We've learned that we can't win with her, so we just let her do it, but then she always complains that we "make" her do all the dishes. It's an unusual quirk, so I can relate to you!

The sponge thing really speaks to me. When I wash things by hand (like things that aren't dishwasher safe), I always use a clean dish towel, and then put it in the laundry after. I never feel like my dishes are clean if I use something that hangs out damp next to the sink 24/7.

Your mom would have had a meltdown seeing my old apartment--because of my landlord being stupid, I actually had two window-unit A/Cs in one bedroom. (one didn't work afaik) Which sucked because I couldn't open a window on nice days. But it was a really old building so there was no option for 'classy' internal air, and it was Los Angeles so no a/c at all simply wasn't an option for me.

I've never really had a dishwasher; I've lived with people who had them a couple times but they weren't generally people who used them much, mostly did the dishes by hand anyway.

Also our plunger lives next to/behind the toilet because honestly where the hell else is it gonna go? On top of the toilet paper under the sink??



Edit: Oh and regarding sponges, I make a point of setting our sponge on it's edge on the sink so it dries out completely between uses, which helps cut down on bacteria. My roommate has always used a dish cloth, and that's fine, but she's REALLY bad about cooking on/burning food when she cooks, and I was having mini meltdowns trying to do the dishes after she cooked because a dish cloth did NOT get crap off the dishes. So I took to buying my own sponges, which I swap out for new ones when they start to get funky. 🤷‍♂