Are men allergic to dishwashers?

I don’t want this to be a man-bashing piece. Really, I don’t. It’s just that I do wonder sometimes if my husband is allergic to the dishwasher.

I have evidence against the theory of a dishwasher allergy. My friend Brad* insists on always being the one to load and unload the dishwasher. It’s his OCD, he says. His wife doesn’t do it right and neither do their six kids, apparently.

I get it, the strong urge to keep the counters clean and the dishwasher loaded properly. But it’s more important to me that the counters stay clear and the dishes actually make it into the dishwasher, especially if I’ve gone to all the work to empty it, carefully putting everything away.

So you see I really want to believe there is another reason, besides the many negative explanations, for why my husband cannot seem to put a dish in the dishwasher until the sink and counters are overflowing and I’ve been out of town for two days. It has to be allergies.

I frequently talk with women who have learned that men don’t see the crumbs on the counters, with the exception of the obsessive compulsive ones of course. Perhaps it is just their obliviousness, their lack of paying attention in the kitchen that is the culprit. Or maybe it is allergies.

I have another friend, Stanley,* when asked to do the dishes because his wife was putting the kids to bed, promptly put them all in the fridge unwashed, as if he was incapable of remembering what he was doing. She got a good laugh and a good lesson from that one. She’s never asked him to do the dishes again.

And then there’s me. I don’t imagine myself a normal woman by any stretch of the imagination (whatever the heck 'normal' is anyway). I love things neat and clean, but if I have to choose, I’ll pick clean over neat any day. My husband is the reverse. He doesn’t see the hairs on the bathroom floor or the crumbs on the counter, but he sees my piles of papers yet to be sorted and bills yet to be paid. Miraculously he often doesn’t see his piles of clothes in the bathroom or bedroom. Maybe that’s another allergy?

There was a while early on in our marriage when I would say, “I love you,” to my husband every time I came across one of these bothersome things about which I had made my thoughts clear. For me it was a reminder that I loved him regardless of these small silly things, but he felt like it was passive aggressive. You don’t want an “I love you” to be perceived as passive aggressive. So, I stopped.

However, I do still try to remind myself that I love him, regardless of whether he is allergic to the dishwasher, or he’s just oblivious, or whatever the reason may be that I find dishes in the clean sink when the dishwasher is sitting there empty and forlorn.**

*Names and details changed to protect the identities of the innocent. No humans or animals were harmed in the writing of this post.
**I love my husband very much and I am incredibly grateful for the countless other things he does to keep our family and our lives chugging forward. Furthermore, I have no doubt he could write numerous funny posts about the things I do, or don't do, that are mysteries to himself and the rest of mankind.