My husband is the world's worst loader but I think he does that purposely...50% of dishes come out dirty.
My mother in law once saw me loading the utencils and said something like, that's not the way I do it...i said, really? and carried on.

Oh wow, my first MAJOR argument with my husband after we were married was about how to load the dishwasher... I'm more of a free-style – get as much in there as you can –person, and he's Mr. Organization. I had no idea this was an issue for other people too!

Sort silverware on it's way into the dishwasher. It's quicker then sorting it on the way out. When the wash is done putting it away is much easier.

I'm grateful people want to help if they come to eat at our house!

I've been pushed out of kitchens because of the "rinse" or "not rinse" argument more than I can count. (I scrape but do not pre-rinse.)

Anybody can load my dishwasher any time, any way they want! I too have been banished from other kitchens for not pre-cleaning up to other's standards.

I do whatever I can to fit the most in there, but i do TRY to keep like items together so that unloading is faster. I have a tiny dishwasher so I do the best i can to stuff it full!!

I would constantly rearrange the dishwasher when my brother and sister-in-law lived with me. She just had a different method and it didn't maximize the amount of dishes you could get effectively clean. It bugged me, so I just quietly rearranged daily. In cases where the dishwasher will be filled, washed, and filled again in order to clean up after a party, I'll take all the help I can get.

My best friend is freaky about letting anyone load her dishwasher...but she lets us unload and I must say that more than once I have unloaded still dirty dishes...so gross. I'd rather hand wash or do a super job pre-rinsing instead of putting them in with food still clinging. Seems like a waste to use the dishwasher and still end up with dirty dishes.

It's not being persnickety, it's just common sense! If you load a dishwasher incorrectly, the dishes will not get clean, or melt, or stab you when you try to unload them. I've taught many roommates who came from dishwasher-less homes how to load a dishwasher. My primary rules being:

Wooden items never go in the dishwasher. They become over-saturated and split.
Cast Iron items don't go in either.
Knives - pointy ends down.
Tall kitchen utensils (like spatulas and what-not) lay down on the top shelf, not in the silverware rack.
Always rinse or scrape pieces of food off dishes before loading, otherwise the scraps of food just whirl around in the dishwasher and end up on another dish.
Dirty sides of dishes face inward toward the spinny jet thing.
If there's a lot of dishes to be done, take large items out and wash them by hand. Why let one pot take up the space of 6 plates when you could just wash it quickly by hand?

....

I swear I'm not high-strung.

I don't sort the silverware when I put it in, otherwise spoons get stuck to spoons and you end up with food in between them that doesn't get rinsed off! Mix the silverware all together to make sure that doesn't happen. And knives blade down! I hate stabbing myself on knives that have been loaded wrong.

The last time folks tried to help me deal with dishes after dinner, they insisted on hand washing everything, even though the dishwasher was emptied specifically to deal with post-dinner dishes.

My question is...how much do you have to rinse the dish, if at all? I have seen people thoroughly "rinse" dishes and I think "thats now clean enough to be shelved, why dishwash it?" I on the other hand scrape of large food chunks and put it in.
I do wonder if there is filter or something blocking the drain that might get clogged.

Ah-ha! I didn't know this was a common issue either. I put like items next to each other and fill it up in an orderly fashion to put fit in as many dishes as possible, and my husband puts everything where ever, glasses top AND bottom, bowls and plates mixed up-- I hate it but haven't said anything because I don't want to be a nag and I AM grateful that he actually does dishes... I just quietly rearrange.

Sometimes your dishwasher doesn't give you any choice. I have to load my wine glasses in the bottom with the plates and the heavier dishes because they're too tall to fit on the top.

As a resident of a London flat with a kitchen barely big enough to fit a cooker in, let alone a dishwasher, I can't really comment on dishwasher loading. However, I did nearly come to blows with an ex-girlfriend over the correct order to hand wash items - I insisted glasses first, then crockery, cutlery and finally cookware.

Our relationship was over within a month of that argument. Make of that what you will.

People are so opinionated about this because everyone's dishwasher has a slightly different configuration and everyone's various sizes and shapes of dishes fit differently. What works in my dishwasher might be inefficient in yours or might not work with the shape of your bowls.

When my sister sees me rearrange dishes that she's loaded, she apologizes for doing it "wrong", but it's not that it's wrong, it's just that I'm accustomed to making the most space-efficient arrangements for what I've got and she isn't. I would probably be "wrong" at her house.

Some people also just aren't spacial thinkers. I beat my brother at Tetris ten times out of ten, and he can't seem to figure out that bowls should go in face down -- coincidence? I think not.

I got to spend some time in upstate NY where there were a lot of energy conscious folk that awoken me to a different way of thinking. My dishwasher is now, and has been for about 8 years, a place where I put my clean dishes to dry. I wash them all by hand(and my child has been known to pitch in) and place them in there on the drying racks. If I'm going out I'll just leave the dishwasher door open for the fresh air. Who knew? I only use my dishwasher properly for big occasions where I make sure they're rinsed well and pile them in. Maybe not for all but really works for me!!

Despite the fact that a dishwasher is a machine, what moves inside is the water (and soap), not the dishes themselves. So why does one need to place the silverware handle side down? I used to do that for fear the knives (especially) would be unbalanced and flip out of their caddy - but they don't. Removing knives, forks and spoons by their handles seems to me to be more sanitary and it means that knife blades the "bowls" of spoons don't have fingerprints on them. I also learned from my Boeing engineer brother-in-law that a dishwasher can not just be loaded, but crammed full of dishes as long as there's room for water to flow around everything. We had had a family dinner for twenty people and he offered to load the dishwasher (dishes, glasses, pots and pans - everything) and while the two racks were loaded to the hilt, the result was still a dishwasher's worth of sparkling, clean dishes. Currently we have a Bosch dishwasher, and the manufacturer's photo of a full-loaded machine still shows ample space for last minute items.

The worst part is unloading the dishwasher. Ideally one would not have base cabinets in the kitchen and instead have a series of four or five dishwashers, all of which would "store" clean dishes except for the one being used at the moment for cleaning. But then, I'd like to have multiple clothes washers, too.

Every dishwasher is a little different, but I never argue with anyone that loads my dishwasher, ever. I have read that some dishwasher manufacturers recommend not pre-rinsing dishes because the dishes actually get cleaner with some gunk left on them.

Kandyce78 is absolutely right about this counterintuitive advice - as if it needed some dirt to get things rolling, so to speak.

While I don't have a "specific" rule about loading my dish washer, I do tend to load the plates standing up and utensils facing upward. If any of the guest wants to help me by loading the dishwasher, by all means, please do. =) there is nothing sweeter than friends help. They can load however the way they want to.

I have read that hand washing actually uses more water. Anyone know if that is true? My husband is the chillest person in the world. . .except that he rearranges the dishwasher after I have loaded it. . .pretty much every time. RM

http://suburbiahappens.blogspot.com/

chrisiec -- what crazy upstate cult got ahold of you? Using a dishwasher is much more energy efficient than hand-washing - but only if you let them air-dry.

In my house, I defer to my partner re loading the dishwasher, even though I was doing it as a child long before his mother let him into the kitchen. But the clothes washer is my turf, so it balances out!!!

I say rinse, like items together, but really, your house, your rules. You'll learn from experience and visits with friends what works best. I prefer dish washed dishes to hand wash for almost everything, except fragile items like wine glasses & fine china.

Maybe it's just how I wash dishes by hand, but I have a hard time believing that my dishwasher is more efficient than I am. The thing takes like 40 minutes just to wash the load.

I agree with the above poster who said it makes a great drying rack, though.

Every dishwasher is a little different, so if you know how to Tetris-fit everything on two racks, be my guest. If you are wasting space, then I prefer to load my dishwasher.

Ha! Lotsa comments!

I still remember the time about 20 years ago that my sister who had literally just given birth & in the process broken her coccyx so was in dire pain and on bed rest came out into the kitchen to yell at me that I wasn't loading her dishwasher correctly. (I was there to help out around the house).

My extremely sensible sister-in-law who is my model in all things told me once not to be so obsessive about loading their dishwasher, that if I forgot something or couldn't fit it in, I could always wash it on the next load. She understands so well how crazy my family is. I have taken her words to heart!

My husband began our marriage by loading knives blade up. That* didn't last long.

*his technique...not the marriage! :)

In those pants, I'd watch her load it all day long.

@ muddymudskipper --

Forget the pants, it's the shoes that are doing it for me!

I'm a dishwasher loading Nazi. When I had a roommate living with me, I would literally reload the dishwasher after he had already loaded it. Of course, I am A.R. about putting dishes, underwear, and toiletries away, too...so it's probably just a personality thing. And yes. There IS a right way to hang the toilet paper roll.

DO NOT PUT YOUR GOOD KNIVES IN THE DISHWASHER. Wash by hand.

Also, do not put metal whisks in the dishwasher. They rust immediately, then are not safe to use.

@CRAZYLADY ~ hahahahahah! Hope there weren't any injuries! Glad the marriage is going strong! :)

I have to admit. When my husband is at work, I reload the dishwasher before I run it. He just throws things in with no rhyme or reason. The space is not being used optimally! I have to reorganize, I can't help it. It hurts his feelings so I have to be sneaky! :) ha!

Also, he will run it half full. That drives me nuts! So wasteful!

I don't care how you load my dishwasher but if you unload it you better put each mug, cup, plate and bowl in the exact right spot in the cupboard, in just the right way. You know, all the mug handles in the same direction, big cups with big, little with little and God help us, do not put anything face down.

I actually kind of follow the plan set up above, but RULES? Dirty IN, clean OUT! That's about it! (I put stuff away the minute I have time after the cycle ends, and we store the dirty dishes in the machine until it's full enough to run.)

I will say, old dishwashers that are still in use often DO require rinsing, but newer ones usually don't.Sometimes the variations in how to load stem from old vs new machines or other considerations. I scrape, but I rarely rinse, unless the "dirt" is something like egg that will stick and dry to an unwashable permanent substance if left too long -- I usually only need to run the machine once a week, since it takes a while to fill up.

As long as the stuff is dishwasher safe, and not much that I own is not, I'm not going to quibble about how somebody else loads it. At worst, I run another batch later.

I use my dishwasher as a drying rack too (because it doesn't wash well). I also have old water pipes that make me run my water before it'll run clear. Maybe because the water has a longer chance to pool, I've noticed rusty stains in my dishwasher. I bought some lemon kool-aid to clean them.

@ WHITE ON WHITE: bwahaha! My hubs loves to cook & since his job changed a few months ago he's home most nights (traveled almost 24/7 for years). He's kicked me out of 'my' kitchen. I am forced to sneak into the kitchen after he heads to bed to straighten my cupboards.

btw, the lady in the pic underwent one AMAZING transformation - i wanna know how to do that ;)

I don't even have a dishwasher, and have never had one, but have noticed that almost no one seems to load dishes from back to front. This makes no sense to me at all. You load from the front and then you have to reach over dishes and glasses to get to the back, and you can't open the door and see at a glance how much space is left before you need to do a load. Subsequently, if I ever do get a dishwasher, I know I will be my own dishwasherloadingnazi and everyone else will be wrong. The first step is admitting it - in advance.

haha, i wash dishes like i wash clothing: with no regard for like items and cramming as much dirty items in there as possible. we're a "tetris" family, in more ways than one, so the faster i can get something done with fewer loads, the better. never steered us wrong, but then again, we aren't that concerned about what our dishes/clothing look like. lust that they're clean!

@mid-c frank
I am not accustomed to using a dishwasher even when I have one in the house (household is usually just 2 ppl so it would take a while to fill up and in the meantime all those dirty dishes would just be sitting around... meh! Or I assume that's the reason my mom never used hers) but I don't think I'm a very efficient hand-washer either. If I had to do a dishwasher full of dishes at once, the dishwasher would probably use else water than me.

@someidealisticfuture
I insisted glasses first, then crockery, cutlery and finally cookware.
This just begs the question... why does it matter?

Ha! My name is Emily and I'm a dishwasher nazi. I hate it when people pre-rinse. It's such a waste of water, and (modern) dishwashers are better at removing gunk than older ones, hence it's unnecessary. I was also told by a dishwasher manufacturer that leaving gunk on your dishes protects them, if you use powdered detergent. The powder normally hits the food gunk and washes it off--if you prerinse, the gunk hits your dishes directly and scratches them (you'll know if you have this problem if your silverware has hairline scratches all over them). But I agree. Your dishwasher is like your child: Only you know the best way to deal with it and when people try to "help" they generally just cause more problems.

At my parent's place, the dishwasher's bottom shelf can't hold big pots/pans, mostly because the utensil caddy is in the middle of the shelf. However, theirs does an awesome job for plates and items like that (plastic cutting boards, sheet pans, etc). My dishwasher has the utensil caddy along one edge, so I have room to put big pots/pans in the bottom, but due to the spinning thing to clean the top shelf, I don't have enough vertical height for some of my sheet pans. I usually do put knives in handle down (same with forks/spoons), but I only have 2 knives that I would ever put in my dishwasher that aren't butter knives. My good knives are hand washed and they're also dried with the blade up. However, the utensil caddy is on the back of the dish drain and against the breakfast bar, so its not in the way of being reached over.

I tried different loading methods and generally follow the guidelines listed above but my dishes, and especially glasses and silverware, would still come out hit or miss.
And then, I was in the grocery store one day and told the kid to go get some dishwasher detergent. She came back with a box of packets from a brand I never use. I almost sent her back but decided to try them anyway.
Anyway, the suckers were the best thing I ever tried. The dishes now come out perfectly clean no matter how I stack them. The glasses are always perfectly clear and sparkling. I went back to my old packet brand just to make sure it wasn't something else. The old packet brand gave me crappy results. So I went back to the accidental discovery and have never looked back.
So, if you can't get your dishes clean no matter how you sort the dishwasher, try changing your detergent.

I feel completely neurotic when correcting my roommate's dishwasher loading technique. Bowls have to be facing down, at least at a 45 degree angle in order to get clean. Cutlery in the dishwasher makes for dull and banged up blades. Dishwashers will scratch off the marks on glass measuring cups. No cast iron pans. I thought this was all basic knowledge, but my experiences with 5 different roommates seems to suggest otherwise.

For newer dishwashers, you don't need to rinse. Dishwashers and detergent are designed to clean dishes with some food on them. If there's no food residue, you'll just etch your glasses more. A test engineer from Whirlpool told me they put whole frozen pizzas in with a load of dishes and, at the end of the cycle, the pizza is gone.

Best thing is to read the manual that came with your dishwasher. Most people don't bother and they continue to do things the way they were taught or what they've heard from others. Or what they read on AT, apparently.

I rinse and do a quick wash. However, in an ideal world I'd have two dishwashers as I hate emptying.

I've heard that dishwashers use less water than doing it by hand.
Not liking to do dishes, I'm ok with that.
I don't like putting plastic on the bottom, having been told it will melt. Anyone else have that thought?

My house came with a dishwasher and I immediately gave it away. A quirky little chest of drawers now fills that space and holds our dishtowels, potholders, aprons, etc.
Dishwashers are noisy. And whether they use more water than hand-washing is apparently a matter of opinion/technique, but they definitely use electricity, which hand-washing does not.

Pots, pans, cutting boards, sharp knives, and anything weird shaped stay out of the dishwasher. I wash those by hand to make sure they get clean. I only use the dishwasher for basic cups, plates, bowls, and flatware.

My husband and I have a rule that whomever is loading the dishwasher gets to load it their way. BUT I often go back and rearrange when he is done because he doesn't put like things together and it wastes a lot of space. My mom is like the ultimate dishwasher loader so I know how annoying it is to be told you're loading the dishwasher wrong, but I just can't help myself when I see things thrown in haphazardly.

I've been known to be a little crazy about the dishwasher. I load; my husband unloads. It works out.

Also, I've been washing my whisks in the dishwasher for years. Just checked them - no rust. Whew!

My dishwasher style is "in the dishwasher." I have a 6 year old that has to load her own dishes instead of leaving them in the sink. So needless to say, it's not too organized. I do rearrange things when I get ready to run it, but I"m far from picky about it.

Dishwasher nazi here. I do have a number of rules. Fortunately, I currently have no roommies, so it's just myself I have to blame for any infractions. :o)

1. Organized arrangement counts, but specifics vary by machine. If you arrange well, you can get dinner dishes (glasses, plates, bowls, silverware, and dessert dishes) for 25+ people squeaky clean in one load, even in a crappy old dishwasher. All that matters is making sure the water can circulate. (Did I mention I kick butt in Tetris?)

2. Silverware with handles down. It gets cleaner. Or, if you're washing 25+ people's dinner dishes, do some handles up, and some down so you can fit more in. And it you're worried about being sanitary, just wash your hands before unloading the silverware. And I've yet to cut or poke myself on silverware.

3. Unload the bottom of the dishwasher first. That way, you don't drip the water that collects on the bottoms of cups and mugs in the top shelf all over the items on the bottoms shelf.

4. Towel off the bottoms of mugs and glasses before starting to unload the top shelf.

5. Certain cookware/bakeware needs to stay out of the dishwasher entirely. I have a sheet pan that leaves little metal marks all over my white stoneware dishes, so it never goes in the dishwasher.

6. Whether or not a dishwasher saves water vs. hand washing all depends on whether or not you're a handwashing nazi (which I also am), but I'll save that for another time. :o)

My partner has one very hard and fast rule about loading the dishwasher: "GO NEAR IT AND I'LL BREAK YOUR LEGS." Even though I know a galantine from a ballotine, I have no idea how to put the wine glasses into the dishwasher so that they don't break.

My boyfriend is starting to learn how to load the dishwasher properly (according to my rules anyway!) Top shelf is for cups, tupperware and long utensils. Bowls along the back of the bottom rack and plates up both sides. Silverware can go in anyway as long as it gets clean. I do like the idea of sorting the silverware as it goes in. I don't think I have the patience to do that though!

My mom is the dishwasher loading master. I don't know how she can cram so many things in there and have them still come out clean!

Our dogs are in charge of scraping and rinsing. They are very interested in conserving water. I'm in charge of re-loading after my husband botches it.

I don't really care how things are loaded as long as everything gets clean, but I do have one rule: Pointy stuff down in the cutlery basket. This is why

@MrMcFeeley: Sorry that someone died this way, but really, the chances are so rare. I mean, really. You could just as easily fall on the open dishwasher, crack your head on a dish or even the corner of the door, and die just as fast, even with knives pointed down. Maybe if you have kids, that's one thing, but I can't remember the last time I fell in my kitchen, let along fell in my kitchen with the dishwasher door open.

*let alone*, not let along.

Hah, yes, I would DEFINITELY be the host kicking people out. I have an OCD with the way things are loaded in the dishwasher, and you pretty much just outlined all of the rules. The only other thing to point out is that dishes/plates should never be banging together loosely. If you load not-quite-like items together, this happens, and the force of the jets will push them back in the cradle, then they fall forward again and clang against the other dishes in front of it. This could damage your dishes! Good idea to make sure things are sitting nicely in the dishwasher before running it off.

@Trish1980: I think you're just focusing on death. I'd like to avoid a fork-impaled hand if at all possible, and I imagine that's less rare. Even given the relative rarity, if you can avoid a gruesome injury simply by putting pointy stuff down, why wouldn't you do it?

I only have two rules.
1) Don't wear suede heels.
2) Don't put non-stick pots in it.

MrMcFeeley: Really? I have yet to injure myself even slightly with upturned silverware or meet anyone who has.

Why wouldn't I do it?: My silverware has always gotten cleaner handles-down. There are plenty of things in life where we risk injury because the chances of injury are so slim. We could all avoid tons of gruesome injury if we all stopped driving, for instance, but we still drive because the benefits outweigh the risks. And I'd think more people end up in accidents than end up falling on open dishwasher doors. Or some of us have gas stoves that could on rare occasion cause horrendous, injurious explosions, but we use them anyway despite the risk. For me, the benefit of always having my silverware come out clean is worth the risk of the rare chance of knicking myself on a knife blade.

I've heard that dishwashers clean more efficiently when dishes are not pre-rinsed. I let my dishes soak overnight so food doesn't get dried on, then I load them without rinsing the following morning. Everything goes in, I hate handwashing.

@Trish1980: My silverware comes out equally as clean with the pointy bits down, so maybe it's just a difference between our dishwashers. So for me (and probably for a lot of other readers), there's no downside whatsoever. If my forks came out dirty whenever I put them tines down, I'd probably consider putting them tines up instead, but more likely, I'd just get rid of that crappy dishwasher.

I definitely have opinions about how the dishwasher should be loaded, but I also recognize that for the most part it's just my own personal hang-up. So if you want to load it up go for it! The only lines I draw are around certain items that should never, ever, go in the dishwasher. Like my good knives, or my grandmother's china.

Touch those, I may stab you.

@ IMONFIRE
Exactly!

I got a new Bosch dishwasher in October. In a switch from previous practice, now I use the little grate that sits on the top surface of the silverware caddy; I had always flipped it up before. The grate allows you to put all the spoons together without fear of nesting.

Rustypatina (who gave the dishwasher away because "dishwashers are noisy"), you are welcome to stop by my house. I bet you won't even be able to tell whether the dishwasher is running. Sometimes I think "It's quiet -- is it finished already?" and I realize it's still going. Can't hear it from five feet away. Most of the time, though, I use the delay button and it runs at 4 a.m. just for energy reasons.

Whoa! A lot of comments on this post!! I can't read them all...came here to say that I have always been a bad dish do-er and living in a house with a tiny kitchen and NO dishwasher is finally helping me grow up ( i am 31) I am much more zen with no dishwasher stress!!

Loading a dishwasher is like solving a jigsaw puzzle for me: can I feet this thing in between these or not? Sometimes I end up rearranging it several times! LOL And there are certain spots for certain dishes, no exceptions. :) And I put spoons, forks and knives handle up. It is more easy to take them out by handles.

I do have rules, but mostly they're in the interest of keeping my dishes clean and nice. Non stick pans, good knives, wooden things, delicate glass, and certain plastic things that apparently melt shouldn't go in the dishwasher (a lot of people ignore these rules but it tends to totally ruin your dishes, and IDK about you guys but I kinda love my dishes). Everything else can be crammed in however you want as long as it has some sort of common sense behind it. I'm still trying to explain to my fiance that bowls need to be mostly face down or they won't get clean.

Wow! Loads of opinions about this I see. My worst nightmare is to trip over an open dishwasher and on to knives pointing up - so that one is a given at my house. I find the problem with sorting silverware as you put them in the dishwasher is that spoons and forks literally spoon, and don't get cleaned... Otherwise I keep the larger items at the edge and smaller in the middle of the bottom rack, and keep utensils lying in the top-rack. But I pretend not to be too picky...

1. Never run a partially empty dishwasher if you want to save energy. It's 7-9 gallons of hot water no matter what's in there. If you run water while hand washing, the dishwasher is more cost effective.
2. Even a dishwasher that claims to have a 'garbage disposal' will clog the jets with food particles (I have one that does), so scrape everything off, but don't rinse. Learn how to clean your jets and any internal filters. Bosch is one of a few that don't have this problem.
3. Prewashing is usually a waste of water unless it's incredibly dirty.
4. Normal is the best cycle with the Heated Dry turned off, but 'Added Heat' turned on so that water that is too cold or that cools off with all those dishes maintains the proper temperature.
5. Dishwashers and soaps are made for water that is 200 grains or less of hardness. Many cities and towns do NOT have this (you can ask your water company). You can put a couple salt tablets (those that are made for water softeners) in a cut stocking or if you can find it a hanging perforated plastic dispenser cup (like the ones they had for JetDry years ago) in the machine to reduce the hardness. Don't block the jets or put it in the bottom of the dishwasher, inside the back of the upper rack is fine.
6A. NEVER put in more than a tablespoon of dishwasher powder/liquid unless the mfgr says so. You are ruining your dishwasher (especially true where you have soft water 100 grain or less).
6B Powdered detergents can etch glass and china since they contain sand to keep the powder free flowing.
6C Switching from a phosphorous to bleach based based dish-washing cleaner can cause havic and chemically stained stainless. You need to run a few cycles empty.
7. Monthly put two cups filled with vinegar upright in the bottom rack and run the cycle to remove any calcium build up and help reduce the possibility of mold.( Get down on your knees if you have to and check for mold in the back upper corners even if you have SS tub.) Wipe the door frame where it joins the dishwasher as well as the gasket to remove debris and other mineral buildups. (Or you can buy $4-6 dishwasher cleaner packs but the vinegar is cheape, you still have to wipe the gasket/door framer.)

I load my dishwasher according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Trying to get my husband to follow the same method has been difficult.

I... I could cry I love this post so much.

Just replaced a dishwasher older than I am. It's got a grid on the silverware holder that effectively prevents spoons from 'spooning' so everything gets clean. But the BEST PART is that hubs called me into the kitchen the other night to diagnose why the new dw wasn't working. Thing is, it was...he just couldn't hear it!!!

Completely agree with the above post! Laughing so much. Been there.

My boyfriend and I share a tiny apartment and with it is an even tinier dishwasher! I am constantly going behind him and correcting his dishwasher loads..... he loves to put huge bowls on the bottom rack, and the water NEVER gets to the top rack because of this. Drives me nuts. Glad he loves to help, tho :D