Before, after

For two years I lived on the top floor of a house with a family downstairs. Whenever they left town, they would let me use their washer and dryer.

But I don’t mind going to a laundromat; what I really hate is washing dishes. So late into the two years I figured out that I could take all my dirty dishes downstairs, in a laundry basket, and use their dishwasher.

It felt like a sneaky or intrusive thing I was doing, more so because the dishwasher was full. Personally, I wouldn’t want some stranger touching all of my clean dishes. So I did the most obvious thing: I took a picture of how the family’s dishes were arranged in the dishwasher, then I carefully removed them and stacked them on the counter, washed my dishes and took them back upstairs, then replaced the family’s dishes in the dishwasher according to the photo, which took longer than one would imagine.

Inspect the photos. I think you will agree that I did a great job.