The Great Dishwasher Debate

In the land of Passive-Aggressiva, AKA my house, there's yet another silent war being waged.  This particular skirmish involves the dishwasher and whether to pre-rinse the dishes or not prior to inserting them into their proper spot in the machine.  I'm a rinser, hubby is not...hence the debate.

Until this past week, I've let him go about his non-rinsing ways and not said too many words about it.  However, during a particularly whiney morning in our household, I was unloading the dishwasher and reached the end of my tether.  When the girls are screaming or whining, two of the cats are fighting and creating a tornado of cat hair, the third cat is puking somewhere in the house, and the phone is ringing, the LAST thing I need to do is re-wash a dish; or lose a fingernail trying to scratch off the food that is now hermetically sealed to the dish.  I agree with hubby on this one important point..."A dishwasher is supposed to wash the dishes, therefore I shouldn't have to rinse them off first."  YES, that is so true!  Items should not have to be rinsed before putting them into a dishwasher.  Commercials for detergent and washers all hail that very remark!- Life would be easy if I could simply turn on the dishwasher full of dirty, sticky, messy dishes and it actually got rid of all the food on the plates, like a good little dishwasher is supposed to do.  Ours, which we inherited when we bought our house, does not perform its washing duties appropriately, and when hubby leaves food on his dishes/cooking items when putting them in the dishwasher, I inevitably have to re-wash said items before putting them back in the cabinet.  Who has time for that!?!?

So, after a day of being a mommy and an entertainer and a short order cook and a housekeeper/maid and a soother and a translator and a dish re-washer, I decided to approach hubby in that walking-on-egg-shells manner that's required of such an endeavor.  Kindly, I mentioned that once again, the dishwasher did not fully clean the dishes and it added a bit of stress to my hectic day.  I continued with a plea for his help in making my day peachy keen by simply running his plates/utensils under running water for a fleeting moment prior to putting them into the dishwasher.  *Notice I did not place blame.  I said nothing about his rinsing negligence that created the problem in the first place.*  His response: "I'll see what I can do."  And the war wages on...and on and on.