Man versus man. Man versus nature. Man versus himself.

As we learned in high school English, these are the three great themes in all literature. To which we must add one more: Man versus newly purchased, unseemingly sleek, high-end, high-tech, high-maintenance dishwasher. 

What’s that you say? “The Old Man and the Whirlpool” does not carry the same gravitas of a geezer trying to catch a marlin. That was the whole plot, right? With some metaphors thrown in?

That’s only because you’re not sitting next to me in my kitchen, examining, once again, a bunch of strangely slimy plates and still-milky glasses that just spent the past 90 minutes getting the wash of their lives. A wash courtesy of our new, ergonomic, European-made dishwasher with more buttons than a Met Gala topcoat and all the cleaning power of a bar of Motel 6 soap. 

“Read the manual,” said my husband when I called him to complain that the dishes looked like they’d been licked by a camel with a cold. 

Read the manual? Perhaps he’d like me to perform a cornea transplant while I’m at it. Maybe I can pop over to Russia and talk a little sense into President Putin. Did I mention this manual for this machine is 55 pages long and includes an entire section on, among other things, how to “Delay Start” the wash cycle? Like it’s a NASA launch, and there’s a funnel cloud headed toward Cape Canaveral?

Manuals are great for people who read manuals. I have a husband who sits down and actually absorbs the information, connecting the words to the diagram of the “middle spray arm,” “upper filter,” and the “rinse reservoir funnel rat” — note to self: find glasses. Manual readers poke and prod, and suddenly, whatever they’re working on lights up or sings in Klingon or takes off for Mallorca. Bully for them.

The other 98 percent of us open randomly to a page, see a line like, “Press and hold the 1 and 3 buttons and at the same time turn on the dishwasher with the ‘On’ (15) button,” and wail in there-goes-my-marlin despair. Here. You try reading about that Delay Start feature: 

“To delay the start of the wash — or NASA launch — press the 18 button until the desired delayed start time appears in the time display. The delay start is set in one-hour steps up to nine hours. If the Delay Start button is pressed after the nine-hour mark, the delay start feature will be canceled and must be reselected.” 

Copy that, Houston? I mean — writing it out, word for word, I do get the basic idea: Goof in pressing button 18 and you have to start again. I think. Yet that’s just one tiny paragraph about one tiny button for one ridiculous feature I will never, ever use. There are still another 54.5 pages about all these OTHER features. The “optic indicator” — the thing has eyes? — and the “data plate” — HAL. Come get your dinner. — and everyone’s favorite, the “non-return valve.” Don’t they mean the valve of no return? 

The thing is, I don’t want a dishwasher that requires years of study. I don’t want anything in my home that requires years of study, be it my smart TV, my digital toaster — guess which spouse bought that — or my master’s degree. I got one of those in less time than it is taking me to calm down about this stupid non-washing dishwasher.

And manual.

When the toaster-buying, dishwasher-decider-in-chief arrived home, he thumbed through the 55-page marriage-destroyer and discovered the problem. I hadn’t put in precisely the right amount of detergent: Two flat tablespoons. No more, no less.

How could I have missed the “Adding Detergent” instructions? There they are, just 28 fascinating pages in. Right after the marlin eats the old man and licks his bones clean.

Next time, when I choose the dishwasher, I know what I’m going to get.

A marlin. 

Creators.com