Tidewoven Inc | The Dishwasher Incident: Nora’s Dishwasher Mandate
That evening, after the Incident Report From School™ and the Emotional Debriefing™ and the Mutual Dignity Restoration Hour™, the Reyes household finally settled. Which is when Nora walked into the kitchen holding a spiral notebook, three different colored pens, and the severe expression of someone preparing to chair a disciplinary hearing. Daniel and Micah both froze at the table. Elise whispered to herself, What now? And Lucy sat down with popcorn.
Nora cleared her throat. “I have called this meeting,” she said, “because you two are embarrassing.”
Daniel blinked. “Excuse me—”
“And inefficient,” she added, flipping open the notebook with a crisp snap. “Very inefficient.”
Micah sat straighter. “Hey.”
Nora ignored him completely. “After observing multiple loading strategies and reviewing the structural integrity of the racks, I have created the official dishwasher guidelines for this household.”
She slid a stapled packet onto the table. It had a cover page. And a table of contents. And page numbers. Elise nearly cried from relief. Lucy applauded.
Daniel picked up the packet with reverence. “Nora, is this… laminated?”
“No,” she said, offended. “This is the draft. I’ll laminate the final version.”
Micah flipped to page two.
SECTION 1: BOWL PLACEMENT
– Bowls go in the top rack.
– Bowls must face southwest for optimal water flow.
– Bowls may not overlap or “nest.”
– Bowl angle deviation must not exceed 15 degrees.
(Key: Red graphic = NO. Green graphic = YES.)
Micah stared. “Southwest?”
Nora did not blink. “Water rotates. Learn physics.”
Daniel looked personally validated. “See? I told you the angle matters.”
“Yeah,” Micah muttered, “but my angle wasn’t wrong.”
Nora snapped her pen cap. “You were at twenty-three degrees. That is wrong.”
Lucy whispered, “Get him, Nora.”
Nora continued.
SECTION 2: PLATE DISTRIBUTION
– Large plates on the bottom rack, evenly spaced.
– No diagonal stacking.
– No putting a salad plate behind a dinner plate “just because it fits.”
(Micah avoided Daniel’s eyes.)
SECTION 3: THE SILVERWARE TREATISE
This was three pages long. It had diagrams. It had arrows. It had a subsection titled “The Spoon Congestion Problem.” It ended with a sentence underlined three times: Spoons go in opposite directions, so they don’t spoon each other.
Lucy was losing her mind with delight.
Elise wiped a tear. “This is—Nora, this is beautiful.”
“I know,” Nora said.
Daniel looked at Micah. “We have been outclassed.”
Micah flipped to the final page.
SECTION 4: PENALTIES FOR NON-COMPLIANCE
– First offense: Verbal reminder.
– Second offense: Supervised reload.
– Third offense: You lose dishwasher privileges for a week.
– Fourth offense: “Hand washing until you learn.”
Daniel choked. “Hand washing?”
“That’s barbaric,” Micah whispered.
Nora crossed her arms. “Then don’t break the rules.” She handed each adult a freshly printed copy. “These go on the fridge. And in the pantry. And by the dishwasher. No deviations.”
Daniel nodded solemnly. “Understood.”
Micah sighed. “Fine.”
Nora closed the notebook. “Good. Order has been restored.” She left the kitchen like a tiny general who had just saved a nation.
Lucy whispered, awestruck, “She scares me a little.”
Daniel whispered back, “She scares all of us.”
Micah glanced at the packet one more time and muttered, “Southwest-facing bowls. Unbelievable.”
From the hallway, Nora called, “I heard that.”
Micah flinched. The dishwasher hummed in the background, finally, mercifully, at peace.
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