Some days I don’t eat all that healthy. I’ve been feeling cold all morning. I was kind of droopy and coffee didn’t sound that good, so I started my day off with a breakfast sandwich. I followed that about an hour later with 32 ounces of Diet Dr. Pepper. Not long afterward I felt like my insides were being cleaned out by bleach. Just that icky stomach feeling, nothing else.
So for the past two hours I’ve been nibbling on crackers and drinking water in a failed attempt to settle my stomach. Then the dryer timer went off, so I got up to put away clothes. That’s when I saw the countertop fryer. “My, won’t some deep-fried chicken tenders be great” I thought. Don’t judge, my Mom had me convinced that Arby’s Roast Beef sandwiches were medicinal and you only got to eat them when you’re stomach was upset. Amazingly, they work for me to this day.
So I plugged in the fryer and let it warm up with I put away most of the laundry. I’ll get to the rest later, I promise!
Anyway, the chicken tenders went into the oil and I set the timer for three minutes. What to do, what to do? I seriously just felt like standing there and watching the timer and the fryer. Then my guilt-tripping started and I decided to unload the dishwasher. In an effort to conserve electricity I hadn’t turned the lights on in the kitchen. BIG MISTAKE!
I dutifully raced the timer in a three-minute scramble to put away the contents of the dishwasher. Some of it was still damp, so I had to shake off the excess water from the things on the lower rack.
The timer went off and the mozzarella sticks joined their chicken brethren in the hot oil. I did mention that some days I don’t eat healthily, right? Two minutes, I can do this. I’ll get the dishwasher unloaded all the way before the timer goes off.
So I unloaded, stowed, and shook water like a man possessed. There were just two plates left (small ones on the upper rack) when the timer went off. I had missed my self-imposed deadline, but whatever. The chicken and mozzarella sticks made it to the plate to cool and I grabbed the plates.
That’s when I saw something on one of the plates. A bit of stuck on goo, I assumed. I was about to put the plate on the counter for rewashing when I looked at the other plate. It was dirty as well. Then I opened the cabinets and pulled out a couple cups. Dirty. Shoot…did I really just do that?
So I turned the lights on in the kitchen and had to go on the hunt of shame looking for all the dirty things that I had just unloaded, reload the dishwasher, and start it. It was an honest mistake on my part, but it ticked me off. I need to remember to look next time.
In the meantime, I did get done fast enough that my chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks were still hot. Not sitting so well in my tummy now, but at least they were tasty!
UPDATE: I’m partially vindicated. Just before I set the timer on the dishwasher I noticed that the last cycle run was a rinse. Someone doing a good deed had either intentionally run the rinse cycle (unlikely) or had accidentally hit the rinse instead of wash cycle. I can’t blame them, with the lights off you can’t really see the black-on-black smooth buttons and the rinse is right next to wash. So this round goes to the engineers who designed the stupid dishwasher.