Wayne Boatwright wrote:

> We had a built in dishwasher at home since I was around 5 years old. Even
> before I bought all the furniture for my first apartment, I bought a
> portable dishwasher. How OCD is that? :-)
>
I've always lived in homes with built in dishwashers, from infancy on
up, although I never saw a portable machine until an adult. Thankfully I
never had to use one as they seem sort of cumbersome? Emptying the
dishwasher was one chore we kids had to perform. With 7 of us, I'm sure
we could have used two dishwashers at a time? I think my mother
mentioned putting a second one in long before they became more common?
I run my dishwasher at least once a day. Full loads but then I also put
most of my pots and pans in also if they fit. If the load is full,
we'll handwash that odd pot or dish at times, just to finish the job
off. Good knives are hand washed, as are wooden cutting boards, but
throwing plastic cutting boards in the dishwasher is the way to go. I
would hate to have a lot of dirty dishes sitting in or around my sink
area until I washed. That alone makes the dishwasher a good thing-dirty
dishes are hidden away. I have a LOT of kitchen ware in multiples so
rarely have to handwash anything just to be able to use it.