The Elysian Fields

I griped about lighting and vented about venting in the kitchen in the last episode; many, many moons ago I laid waste to the makers and installers of bathroom sinks.

Those two great tastes poor grasps of basic ergonomics and lack of understanding of use paths and just plain bad design (sigh. I suppose "great tastes" is a bit catchier, and far more succinct. So it goes...) come together to form this particular rant.

I have three and a half dishwashers, you see.

There's one under the counter that does the bulk of the work when it gets filled, and the other two dishwashers take care of the care and feeding of it and the rest of the dishes not suitable for mass cleaning. The half dishwasher just likes to splash in the sink and play with the bubbles.

The glass lids of the two pans used for the bain-marie didn't get all that clean, despite the fact that the senior dishwasher was on the job. I wound up stepping in to provide a demonstration, and I realized the deplorable conditions which could easily lead to the problems at hand and several other related complaints.

You see, unlike the sensible two-basin full sized kitchen sink the builders had, well over a century ago, put into the house I grew up in, this house has a single basin, a bit bigger, but not much. In fact, if you drop a dish pan in, you have exactly four inches in which to stack and rinse soap off what you just washed.

Four inches. You can do the silverware, although some slides under the dishpan and hides. You can do two glasses, although if you put a third down there, you can't maneuver enough to rinse any of them without smashing them.

Now, the sink itself would make a fine utility sink for a basement, garage, mudroom, laundry room, or utility sink room. It's a nice enough sink. Okay, maybe not really deep enough, and a bit too prettified to be a really utilitarian utility sink, but I'm trying to cut it some slack.

What a kitchen needs, if it can't have a gigundo commercial basin with commercial faucets and sprays and so forth, is a double basin sink. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. You can't have something that tries to combine the wash and rinse steps in one sink, it makes for trouble, skips the use of the dishpan, and substitutes perpetually running water, an over-soaped-under-soaked scrubbie, and a lack of thorough cleaning for a proper job.

Two sinks can also help in preparation of foods, providing more room, and they only take up a little bit more counter (and under-counter) real estate. The plumbing is only slightly more complicated ~ I know, I absoflogginglutely hate plumbing, and I've successfully re-plumbificated a ninety year old double basin sink single-handedly. They use a single faucet to swing between the two basins, and a single spray, so the supply-side is identical to that of a single basin sink.

Now, if you want to go a step beyond the double basin, throw in a small sink with a spray on a counter or island, and you've provided a veggie prep station and some additional utility. That's a nice feature, but a distant second to the importance of the double basin.

But there you have it ~ why make the working conditions miserable for the poor dishwashers who don't live under the counter? Put in a double sink... why, think of how much easier and far less cruel it would then be to make a punishment like "You'll do it, or I'll have you wash every dish in this house, young man!" stick?

Note: Although this study was completely scientific in nature, it may, perhaps, point at another alternate theory: the designers may simply be victims of head-shrinking techniques, as practiced by certain witch doctors and other such folks.

1. Design sink with minimal space - just a bit bigger than a human adult head.

2. Design sink with a faucet jutting into said space, requiring facial surface to be high above sink, so that water splashed on the face lands on the floor, on the faucet, on the next county over, and some even makes it into the basin itself.

3. Design faucet with large handle to catch water.

4. Bonus: Design faucet handle so a forehead, brought close to reduce splashing, presses it down and turns it, changing water flow and temperature.

5. Double Bonus: Have handle lean out over the side of the faucet so that hands, when scooping water up towards face, bump handle, thus changing flow and temperature of the water.

6. Triple Cooperation Bonus: Design humans with eyes in their face that generally are best kept closed when dealing with facial soap and splashing water.

I'm not sure if it should be a fire retardant foam clue bat, or a flame thrower...

There is a Fire Weather Warning issued by the National Weather Service.

I personaly saw umpteen acres afire on Saturday.

And people say:

"... but that's not right. It's not dry!"

and:

"We've had many, many inches of rain in one day last month!"

and:

"There was snow last week!"

and:

"We're over the average rainfall for the year!"

In otherwords, because it rained some time ago, there is no danger of fire. Even when you can look at cracked, dried out parched soil, and crunch along on dry, dead last-year's undergrowth.

So I suppose that's an excuse to burn something in your backyard or throw cigarettes out of your car window or leave campfires unattended.

Because, at one time, it rained.