My mother-in-law lived for 36 or so years of her married life without a dishwasher. In fact, she was the world’s biggest proponent for continuing on in her non-dishwasher existence, up until about a year ago, when she got her dishwasher.

“Oh, no, I don’t need a dishwasher,” she would say. “I enjoy doing dishes.” And from the look on her face, glowing above the steaming suds, you couldn’t doubt that she believed that. Anyone who knows her would hold her up against boiling water and bleach as being better able to cleanse and clean than either (she is a bit, um, obsessed with cleaning).

But now, dearest MIL has a dishwasher, and though she still loves all things to do with cleaning, they are perhaps running second to her love of her dishwasher. “Oh Sarah,” she exclaimed the other night when I was there, “YOU need a dishwasher!”

I can’t help but nod and agree! But while a dishwasher is high on the wish list, this house has plenty of other things to keep me busy and hopping and planning and spending money. The piles of dishes probably wouldn’t really go down that much if I did have a dishwasher (and if that’s not true, then maybe I need to live in my delusion for a little longer, OK?). My expertise at procrastination and my need to focus on other things – cleaning would be a good start, actually – would probably not improve by the sudden insertion of a contraption to wash my dishes.

But it sure would make life nice, wouldn’t it? Maybe in another year or two…