Dish Is Wash Cooking

Ask me the one house chore that I do best aside from sitting down in front of the TV and I'd happily say it's washing the dishes. I understand why a lot of people hate washing the dishes. It's like half of the things you'll be washing has gone through, at some point, both directly and indirectly, into some other person's filthy slobbering mouth - while the other half may or may not contain rotten stuff. It's messy, definitely but I like it for the following reason:

1. I'm in contact to water so it's cool.

2. I have a perfectly good excuse to play with soap bubbles.

I started washing dishes when I was about eight, and at that age I still had to use some sort of stepladder or chair just to reach the sink. My dad always had this "earn-your-keep" way of running things and so when we came to live with him in Saudi, he figured if he's going to give us allowance, we might as well earn it through chores. Of course, Saudi is Saudi and the house we lived in wasn't exactly large so the two main chores that could be delegated was washing the dishes and ironing clothes.
Since nobody would let a 7 year old touch heated appliance any more than a gun shop would issue a license to an insane criminal, I got the dish washing gig.


At first I thought it was a bitch to do. You iron clothes a few times a week, but dirty dishes always have to done everyday, lest you turn your kitchen sink into a miniature primordial soup of bacterial life. Like for example, I remember forgetting to wash the rice cooker the other day for a grand total of four days and when I lifted the lid, it seemed like the fungus had evolved into the Renaissance period. Washing dishes everyday was bad, but on vacations, it turned into a three-times-a-day ordeal. Okay, maybe my sister and mom helped out, but still, it was a pretty shitty deal to me back then. I felt like it was eating into my vacation.

Later on in my life, I finally got to appreciate it more, for during school season, I always have an excuse to put off having to do homework in, so I got enough time to watch TV (Daimos, Voltes V, and La Traydora - the first mexicanovela in the Philippines) while washing the dishes, granted that I do the dishes really slowly.

I'd like to also think that my constant exposure to running water and cool temperatures is what enabled me to have the longest coughless streak - from 3rd grade of gradeschool to college, which is when I stopped washing the dishes because I was already driving and using the computer - and I might get the so called "pasma".

And to those bitching about how hard it is to wash the sebo/grease off the dishes now, as somebody who's been washing dishes for 20 years, we've already come a long way as far as dishwashing technology goes. Those commercials by Joy about they cut grease like a boss? It's all true. Because back then you had two options - a bar of soap, or dishwashing paste. A bar of soap is a bitch to get into the sponge. After a few uses, the powder washes off and you have to reload again. The other option is to drown it in water first so you can use the concentrate - same banana. It's just as bad in washing, and it's hard to get the soapy smell off.

Now the DISHWASHING PASTE. Now that's an improvement. You got it to stick to your sponge - and that's about it. It's terribly shitty at removing stains, grease, and odor - and for some reason it has a nasty habit of leaving behind, well, paste. Everytime my mom sees that a piece of rice or paste was left in a single fork, plate, or glass -she'd be more than glad to empty out the entire dish rack into the sink to repeat the arguably shitty process of washing all over again. This is probably why, even as an adult, I have the same sort of disdain at dishwashing paste as I would, for example, rapists.

At some point over the years, AXION, specifically, thought it would be cool to change the paste into GEL, which made the paste look like gelatin. I loved it. It smelled nice, and looked fun to play with. I loved it, at least until I got to use it for the first time and realized that because it IS gelatin, it will not stick to pretty much any sponge, and just end up fragmenting into smaller pieces and get stuck into the utensils and get me, of course, a healthy dose of "WASH ALL OF THEM AGAIN UNTIL YOU GET IT RIGHT" treatment. Thankfully, after a few tubs, a few months, and probably a stroke of sobering for the people in AXION, they decided that the gel thing is bullshitting nobody anymore.

Joy, on the other hand, now joy just made life a whole lot easier. It's syrupy so the sponge will easily lap it up. When diluted, it acts as a natural grease-remover, and when concentrated, it becomes the Jovito Palparan of sebo, the type of substance grease tells their kids to always pray they'll never encounter. The moment Joy became a staple washing substance, dishwashing was a breeze.

Even nowadays, I still find dishwashing a good way to relax. There's something about the way water interacts with the dishes and utensils that calms my head. I know it sounds quirky but I'll admit it does. When life is bad, and there's no good news in sight, I switch on the faucet and tell myself "ah at least there's running water, a good sponge, and dishwashing liquid thats neither GEL OR PASTE."