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 | of dishes and deposits |
A couple of weeks ago, we ran out of dishwasher detergent. (Stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this.) We didn’t realize we were out until we were about to go to bed, which is when we usually turn the dishwasher on.
No problem, I insisted, we can use a half borax/half baking soda solution! It’s environmentally friendly and cheap! And easier than going to the drugstore in the middle of the night!
So Dane mixed the stuff up and ran the machine. It worked… okay. The dishes weren’t especially clean, but they weren’t especially dirty, and it was only a one-time solution, so… that’ll do!
Except we forgot to buy more the next day, because we’re like that. So, midnight-ish rolls around, we go to start the dishwasher again, and… drat. We decided to go with the weird borax/baking soda mixture again.
I think it took us three days to get to the store and ALSO bring home dishwasher detergent. Apparently you have to both go to the store AND buy the product if you want to use it. Who knew?
At any rate, by that time, there was a weird mineral deposit on all our dishes. All of them. Every one. Coated in some hardened combination of borax and baking soda.
Let me just say: If you write an environmentally-friendly-tip website, and you recommend that I try some new cleaning product or method, I’m going to need you to spell out all the interesting little side effects from now on, okay? OKAY? Thanks.
Dane bought a multi-gallon bottle of vinegar, I soaked and scrubbed the hardened minerals off our cereal bowls, and all was right with the world again. Or at least with the dishes, which is pretty much all I thought we could reasonably hope for.
Except! The mineral deposit is, ever so slowly, reappearing on a select few dishes. Mostly bowls and silverware. I scrubbed it off again today.
Let me just repeat: If you feel the need to offer environmentally-friendly household tips to unsuspecting and lazy people over the internet, DO go ahead and tell them that their dishes will be forever altered. Because if you keep that information to yourself, they may not only cease to trust your recommendations, they may decide to go out and buy the least-biodegradable dishwasher detergent they can find, just to spite you. (All right, all right, I didn’t; I stuck with $18 a box safe-and-natural stuff, but I’m just saying. It could happen. And no, it doesn’t really cost $18 a box.) Thanks.
I’m happy for you, that you are not cursed with a husband who believes that any given cleaning substance will suffice just fine for any given cleaning activity.
Because the time we ran out of dishwasher detergent, he just squirted in a big old pile of dishsoap and let fly. We were cleaning suds out of odd places for weeks.
At least he rarely repeats mistakes.
Not fun! But what kind of dish detergent do you normally use b/c I tried and tried many a natural products and quite honestly they all suck. I had weird caked on whiteness for months and I eventually switched to those evil Clorax cube thingies. The one bad cleaning product I use (well really the ONLY cleaning product I use) but I happen to like CLEAN dishes. So if you have a good recomendation, other than the site you got that lame tip from, let me know!
Well, I give you credit for at least trying to make something work. I would have sent Brian to pick up a thing of Method (our favorite brand) at Target.
This may be less of an indication that I am resourceful and more of an indication that we are lazy. Hmmm… or maybe I’ll stick with resourceful.