The Mystery of the Dishwasher

I am thrilled to be back in the world of people who have dishwashers. I am horrible at washing dishes, so the magic of a machine which does it for me was a huge selling point for this apartment. As soon as my stuff arrived, I began unloading plates directly into this wonderful contraption for their first good washing in over five years.

They came out warm. Smelling of dish soap. But oddly, the front few plates had white sludge caked on them, and there was white sludge caked in the dishwasher soap holder. Undeterred, I ran another load. And another. Sludge problem remained.

I started noticing that some of the dishes weren't looking quite so clean when they came out, and not just the front ones plagued with the white sludge phenomena. So after seven days of puzzling and meditation, I decided the best way to get to the bottom of this was to open the dishwasher mid-cycle and see what exactly was going on. Since the average Juliedelphia reader is much sharper than Julie, it should not surprise any of you that the issue is that NO WATER runs through my dishwasher. Basically, any semblance of cleanliness was due to the warm air coming in during the drying cycle steaming up (and drying out) the sludge (aka my dishwashing detergent) and lending a fresh scent to my dishes.

I am the smartest woman alive. Oh, and not to brag, but I'm battling my first illness of b-school. The past two days have been spent hacking up a lung during my classes. I do feel much better today, but probably not well enough for the four part itinerary to which my peers are expecting me to adhere tonight.