I Still Don't Have A Clue

I have been married for almost 14 years now. That is a long time to be keeping house. You would think by now I would be a housewife extraordinaire! But life keeps teaching me lessons. There is NO way my ego will become over inflated after this latest discovery; which in case you aren't following my stream of consciousness writing here...means I did something really stupid and it sent a super clear signal that I stink at my chosen profession.

For the last couple of week we have been trying to solve a mystery in our house. Why do our dishes have a funny odor and slightly perfumed taste to them coming out of the dishwasher? Let me tell you, it can totally ruin your eating experience when you plate smells funny. Even though the smell was a pleasant smell it was just SO wrong on our dinner ware.

I solved the mystery yesterday. We have always used cascade in our dish washer. But in my efforts to cut down the grocery budget to a bare minimum (so I can have more spending money...is it shameful to starve your children so you can buy a shirt form Anthropologie?) I have been buying things on sale instead of keeping to my usual "brand loyalist" shopping methods.

So one fine day of shopping at Walmart (I really miss you Safeway) I noticed that Tide detergent was on sale. So instead of Cascade I put the new and significantly cheaper detergent in my cart.

In retrospect I think, how could I have made such a bonehead mistake. While there is no excuse for plain insanity, the packaging is very similar (false advertising!) and the tide pouches were on the shelf right next to the Cascade pouches. So I assumed they were the same type of product. It is always someone else's fault (a valuable lesson I learned in Kindergarten).

Eventually we concluded that it was the new Tide packets that were making our dishes smell so funny. So yesterday when I went back to the store...dish detergent had finally been all used up (wouldn't want to waste and throw it away - even though we hate it - this is the new cheap me) and had made it back on my grocery list, I made an oath that no mater how much more expensive Cascade was I was running back to it with open arms and teary eyes.

I rounded the corner of the aisle, thoughts of happier dish days in my head, and I had an epiphany. It wasn't Tide's fault we had been eating off of smelly dishes - it was mine. There in front of me were the same Tide packets I had bought a month before. This time however I read the fine print.

STAIN RELEASE

IN-WASH BOOSTER

Does that mean...LAUNDRY kind of wash????!!!!! I was pretty much horrified to realize we had been washing our dishes in LAUNDRY detergent. I still hold to this one small scrap of justification - it is not very clear that it is laundry detergent instead of dish detergent. Who knows? Maybe Tide doesn't even make dish detergent and all you super Moms out there would have known that.

But as for me and my house we live on the precarious line of thinking we know what we're doing and messing up all the time.

In order to avoid all future mistakes at least in this department:

I WILL ALWAYS BUY CASCADE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!!!

---Watch Cascade start marketing laundry detergent and silly ol' me start washing clothes in laundry soap!