As I mentioned before, I am visiting some of my children who live in the US and it is a most fascinating country.
This week, there has been serious and lively discussion about an extraordinary event. And no, it is not the economy, national security, politics or foreign policy that is causing a rift in the nation.
It is a true “for” or “against” debate. Something that has made Americans pause, ponder and react.
The topic? Whether or not one should wash a lavatory brush in the dishwasher along with the plates on which you and your family have just enjoyed breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Apparently, the issue arose when an unhappy chappie, who signed his letter Turned Off in Texas, wrote to renowned columnist Dear Abby and said he would no longer eat at his stepdaughter’s home because he had observed her doing just this. Shock, horror and skande. What did the columnist think? Was he correct or was he being absurd?
Because Dear Abby is syndicated countrywide, the query and her advice (she felt it not a good idea), received an avalanche of letters.
One writer said that although the idea of washing the toilet brush in the dishwasher was repugnant, from a hygienic point of view, it was acceptable. The germs and bacteria on the brush would be annihilated in the machine’s washing cycle. It was the idea or the aesthetics that were unpleasing, he suggested.
Another said with feeling: “Don’t pooh-pooh the idea of washing the lavatory brush in the dishwasher.” Yet another stated that she had a story to top the lavatory brush. She knew of somebody who placed a cat litter box in the dishwasher.
Ag, ja, well, no, fine. Frankly, the idea is not appealing. On the other hand, we have all been told that kitchen sponges or lappies are hotbeds of germ warfare and that they should always be boiled or placed in a dishwasher for sterilisation.
Think about it logically. We wipe our dishes with sponges or rags, which then, although we always wash and rinse them, sit on the sink for days and become germ-ridden, a natural receptacle for bugs. So, really, is there any reason we shouldn’t put our lavatory brushes in the dishwasher?
I asked my husband, who knows a lot about all sorts of unlikely things.
“C’mon, of course it’s okay to put a lavatory brush into the dishwasher,” he retorted.
“What, together with our dinner plates?” I exclaimed.
“Why on earth not?” he answered.
“If you’re going to be so pernickety, then you would never throw infant’s soiled clothes in with the rest of the family’s washing. S***-stained clothes will cause similar problems to a lavatory brush. And they don’t.”
Meanwhile, the debate rages.
I asked my friends who, without exception, reacted with horror. “Sies!” they exclaimed, or words to that effect. “You cannot be serious?”
Then, in another publication, I discovered a brilliant do-it-yourself lavatory brush self-cleansing solution invented by clever Sean Michael Ragan, who used a long jar in which he placed suitable disinfectant. Thus the brush would cleanse itself when in position.
“Brilliant,” I said to my spouse. “You can make a lavatory brush jar.”
“Life is too short,” he replied. “If you're worried, stop agonising and put it in the dishwasher.”
Mind you, when I think of the smelly socks that inhabit my washing machine’s bowels, can a lavatory brush be any worse?
To wash or not to wash, that is the question.
Or should it be, as Shakespeare might have said, out out damn brush?