Don’t Use Dish Detergent In Your Washing Machine

This is very good advice. Heed it.

I’m not an idiot. Not usually. Normally, I can negotiate simple everyday tasks with relative ease. Until living here. Korea: 437 Lori: 0

My friend at the corner store, Mr. Wa-tah Pa-teee, meant well. I’m sure he did. He always does. And if I ever need water, or juice, or liquids, he’s such the man. Always there for me.

But today, I needed laundry detergent. “Ball-lay pee-nu jushipshee-yo?” Do you have laundry soap? He nodded, yes, yes, yes, and shuffled to the “housewares” section of the tiny 10 by 10 store. He pointed to bar soap. “Ani-o, ani-o. Pee-nu…” and I pointed to my clothes, pretending to wash them. Ah, yes, yes, yes, he searched the shelves. He picked up a bottle of Drain-o. He read the label. I laughed and shook my head. He laughed and said, “Bathroom!”

Okay. Maybe this was a little bit user error. I mean, after he tried to give me Drain-O to wash my clothes, I probably should have smiled and gone elsewhere. But I didn’t.

He finally exclaimed, “Ah-ha!” and gave me a bag of liquid soap. I tried to read the Korean, but didn’t know any of the words. It smelled good. It looked like laundry detergent. I thanked him, paid him and left.

I came home, ready to do some serious laundry. I started the machine. I poured in a liberal amount of the soap. I added my clothes, then shut the door to my little sunporch where my washer sits. 45 minutes later, I heard the distinctive, “Beep…. Beep…. Beep…” that lets me know the laundry cycle is finished.

I opened the door and screamed. There, covering a good portion of my sunporch tile, was a foot or so of bubbles. You see, my washer empties directly onto the floor. There’s a drain there, which works quite well for the disposal of water, but I guess the abundance of soap was overwhelming. I stared at the floor. I stared at the bubbles. I stared at the bag of detergent. Only then did I realize it was the same picture that was on my dish detergent. Korea, you win.