Which way do you go?

Busy Mom posed the question over a week ago:

Dishwasher.

Utensils.

Handles up, or, handles down?

Discuss.

And boy, did they ever. Fifty-three comments and counting. I didn't add to it and I didn't read through all the comments, but a quick scan suggests that most of her readers are the dead wrong handles up type people.

-0-

When my grandfather was dying, VolMom had to do a lot of things for him and I suppose that she mostly did them the way he wanted them done. But they didn't see eye to eye on the dishwasher thing. Her view was that handles up is a lot safer. But I reckon that she got this method of loading from her husband, 'cause I know that's not the way her daddy taught her to do it.

I'm not taking sides, but:

• The man is dying, can't you load his dishwasher the way he wants? You bought the man a new alarm clock every day to satisfy some bizarre notion during the last week of his life - why not just put the handles down?
  
• Your daughter is both loading and unloading your dishwasher , so what's the biggie? Who knew that someone dosed up on oxycontin washed down with bourbon could care so much.
• Handles up is just wrong.
  

Anyway, I knew there was a dishwasher difference, but I didn't think much about it until I loaded his dishwasher while I was visiting. He hobbled into the kitchen from the other room. And that took some monumental effort from a shrunken and bent, 83 year old end stage cancer sufferer. But he came to ask me how I was loading the silverware, and that took much less effort than bending over to reload the dishwasher which he would have done.

And to be honest, I kinda went into a teenage defensiveness stance. We lived with him while I was in high school and he was always a bit of stickler for household chores and I blanked on which way he liked it under his stern questioning.

"Handles down," I said. "Otherwise the food just pools up at the bottom and besides sharp knives might slip through the basket and get into the washer blades."

He just grinned. He probably told me this himself a hundred times. "That is right," he said emphatically. "You a good girl."