Bubbles

While I was loading the dishwasher tonight, I remembered a story, a story about me and my dishwasher in Kentucky.
On a bright spring afternoon in lovely Louisville, I set about the task of unloading the clean dishes. However, I faced a challenge as soon as I opened the dishwasher door. Suds greeted me: bubbles from top to bottom, side to side, back to front...I couldn't see a single dish for all the suds.

I stood, surprised, staring, and startled, quite honestly, because I knew very well that one never puts dish liquid into a dishwasher. And I had most certainly not put dish liquid in my machine.
I shut the door and started it again, this time running just the rinse cycle. When I opened the door, the bubbles happily fizzed and sputtered at me.

Clearly, the rinse cycle was not long enough.

I checked the racks to make sure I wasn't missing something, but found nothing unusual. Glasses, bowls, my dish scrubber...all things I washed on a regular basis. I started the dishwasher again, this time setting it for the longer wash.

I opened the door when it was done and ruefully looked at those bubbles, wishing they would just go away.
I did some trouble-shooting at this point, and discovered that tossing salt on the suds would make them disappear. I had my salt ready, and I sprinkled it liberally throughout the bubbles. Whoosh, like a magic spell, they were gone!

I ran the machine once more, thinking surely this would be it.
I opened the door and the bubbles cried out,"We're still partying, and don't call us Shirley!"
I tried the salt trick once more, frantically, and then, before running the dishwasher again, I pulled the drawers out to make sure that somehow I wasn't missing what could be making these bubbles. Something caught my eye on the top rack. Something that had escaped my observant, hawk-like gaze before. My scrubby wand was lying there, trying very hard, and quite unsuccessfully, to look innocent.

For the wand was full, but not entirely, of dish liquid.