maxine in ri wrote:
> After almost 19 years of wedded bliss, and heeding the adage:
> "No man was ever killed by his wife while washing the dishes"
> my husband told me Friday that we were buying a dishwasher
> he'd seen on Craig's list.
>
> After the initial shock, I said ok, and yesterday we picked up
> the portable Maytag and hauled it into the house. Silly him.
> we had no dishes to pile in and wash, he'd done them before
> we left!
>
> Now, as dishwasher virgins, we assiduously read the manual,
> which told us to run a rinse cycle on the breakfast dishes if
> we weren't washing them right away.
>
> Does anyone else do this? Is it necessary?

No - just scrape off anything as large as a carcass.

Do you run
> a regular wash cycle or use the sanitize feature that heats
> the water up? (Since most of the detergents I've run into
> have bleach, is it necessary to sanitize the dishes?)

I use the setting which is called water miser - it's the setting on my
dw between pots and pans and fine china. I never use the heat
setting. I prop the door open with a wooden chopstick, swipe any
water which is lying in concave areas with a terry towel, then unload
when bone dry.
Don't put all spoons, all forks etc, together in one bin - they could
fall together and not get the water action.
I rarely use the dw - only two of us, but handy when I do a ton of
cooking, have company, want an instantly neat kitchen or decide to
let the dinner and b'fast dishes collect. However, I'm always
reaching into it for tools like spatulas, so I don't think it's the
greatest invention unless you have duplicates and triplicates of
stuff.

Place plates with their upper surfaces facing center of the dw.

>
> Will the dishes dry overnight if we don't run the dry cycle but
> just open the door?

Yes.