MARK MY WORD: FOR MODERN FAMILY, IT'S AN APPLIANCE LIFE

There's nothing like appliances to make your life easier.

It used to be you had to wash your dishes in a creek. Then along came the kitchen sink, followed millions of dish-pan hands later by the dishwasher.

Now, one appliance manufacturer is touting the "world's first intelligent dishwasher."

No more human dishwashers need apply. This new-and-improved gadget senses the amount of food-soiled dishes in the contraption, the presence of detergent and rinse aid, the wash-arm rotation and the water temperature.

It tracks the amount of time lapsed between loads so it can adjust for dried-on food, and even takes into account the number of times you open the door, assuming that you're probably loading more dishes each time.

Based on all of that, it chooses the proper cycle to get your dishes clean. There's even a delicate wash cycle for fine china and stem ware.

The appliance reportedly saves energy and water by being so smart.

I know about this appliance because I read the press release, which was written by some overpaid public relations guy who impersonated a dirty dish just to get the facts.

All of this interests me because our family has an intelligence-challenged dishwasher.

Our dishwasher is always full of clean dishes. This leaves no room for the dirty dishes, which stack up like modern pyramids in the sink and on the kitchen counter.

Doing the dishes requires us to put away the clean dishes. If you religiously keep up with the dishes, you have no place in the cabinets for them all. So you must always keep some dishes in the dishwasher.

Our 3-year-old daughter, Becca, isn't interested in washing dishes, although she doesn't mind sitting on the dishwasher door when it's open.

I don't know if the "intelligent dishwasher" discerns if it's holding dishes or a child because both can be covered with food.

Most dishwashers require some heavy-duty hand rinsing. It doesn't make sense.

We buy these contraptions to wash our dishes. Then we turn around and clean the dishes before we put them in the dishwasher.

By this philosophy, we should wash our cars before we take them to the car wash.

This latest kitchen aid features one of those super warranties, guaranteeing that it won't flood your home except when you're away for the weekend.

Speaking of kitchen appliances, I never realized just how advanced we've become until some friends of ours bought a new refrigerator the other day.

It's bigger than many cars and the state of Delaware.

It has a freezer large enough to accommodate a polar bear or a year's supply of frozen food. It doesn't just have an ice maker. It's more like an ice factory. Antarctica doesn't have this much ice.

The refrigerator has separate cooling controls for all those crisper drawers. It would take a week to stock the thing.

But there's one big advantage to a gigantic refrigerator. There's plenty of room to hide the dirty dishes.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.