Amanda Lamb: Work left to do

I thought she was ready, I really did. I thought we had crossed our T’s and dotted our I’s. Did I forget to tell her anything? We’ve had 18 years to prepare her for this moment, the moment she will spread her wings and leave the nest and head off to college. Privately, I patted myself on the back, feeling like we had done a pretty good job, until...

“Mom, there’s something wrong with the dishwasher,” she said when she greeted me when we returned for a weekend away with her younger sister.

She showed me a video with suds seeping out from the bottom of the dishwasher and the top of the dishwasher door. I imagined them filling the kitchen until they were waist-high.

“What in the world? How much dishwashing detergent did you put in there?”

“Not much, I just filled up the little drawer. And then I ran it again without any soap and it did the same thing. I cleaned it up.”

“Don’t show your father this video. Let me figure it out first.”

Assuming she had probably done something incorrectly, I didn’t want her father to overreact. I wanted to troubleshoot it first. Normally, a very responsible girl, and someone who always cleans up after herself and her friends, I was inclined to believe whatever happened was an honest mistake.

“Show me what you put in there,” I said quietly, expecting her to pull out the bottle of Cascade dishwasher liquid from beneath the sink. Instead she pulled out the bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid.

“What?” She responded to my wide-eyed look and the grin spreading across my face. “It says right here, ‘dishwashing liquid’.”

Abort the mission, Houston, we’ve still got work left to do!