For the PAD challenge, we are to write a poem about a machine.

Your Dishwasher’s Advocate

Cycle after cycle, they clean our dirty dishes
yet do we ever think about acceding to their wishes?
Maybe they, too, have appetites, and I sometimes think perhaps,
they were patiently waiting for their favorite scraps.

A bit of rich spaghetti sauce, a dollop of our mousse,
a little bit of buttered bread or rib eye’s savory juice
might have fulfilled their evening’s dreams or might have made their day,
But instead we diligently swab it all away!

No rich reward for faithful servants waiting for our scraps.
No satifsfactory searches for tidbits left in gaps.
And so they go another day, our faithful old machines,
without a taste of hamburgers or beets or nectarines.

They cannot live on water alone. Those soapsuds have no savor.
And so the next time when you scrape, please do your pal a favor.
Leave a few scraps on the plate. Don’t clean too well those tines.
Think about your faithful friend who oh too rarely dines.

Leave your dishwasher a tip—something on which to sup.
Leave wine dregs in your goblets and leave them facing up!
Leave rice grains in your rice bowl. Do not clear that sauce away.
Being less efficient, will make your Maytag’s day.

If your wife makes a kerfuffle over the job you do,
remind her it is you that’s here scraping off the goo.
Take her by the shoulders and deflect her view.
Your dishwasher is grateful for it every time you do!