A much loved friend
Has come to the end
The dishwasher, tired
Has finally expired
I’m left bereft
And swabbing mop handed
The hours I’ve spent
Hunched and bent
Playing messy chess
With cups, plates and dishes
But now it stands idly
Lights out and silent
It shared my pain
But could no longer drain
A decade of suds
Cut off at the mains.
We take for granted labour-saving devices. But you sure notice them when they’re not there. It has only been bust for a day, but the dishwasher is sorely missed. According to a book the missus is reading, it takes less than a second today to earn an hour’s worth of artificial light. In the 1950s it took three seconds. In 2000 BC it took 9 months – the only oil was olive.
Our modern lives are remarkably free of fetching, carrying, scrubbing and cleaning – which has come to pass in less than a lifetime. As I don rubber gloves and squirt washing up liquid, I am briefly (I hope) reacquainted with the drudgery of pot washing.
I will miss my reliable old friend and the three dimensional chess which was packing a family’s pots, pans and dishes into its slightly too small space. A flashy new one should arrive in a week – fingers crossed – but this one has earned its place in white goods heaven.
Achilles & Aristotle 