I think there is a very good reason, in the great scheme of things, for the fact that opposites tend to attract.  There has to be someone in a family capable of loading a dishwasher correctly. Theoretically, the female is generally surmised to be best suited for this task. This is not the case in my family.  My mind wasn't designed to operate systematically, and patience is not one of my stronger virtues.  My husband, on the other hand, who spent many years as a draftsman, is a natural.  His organized mind has the whole procedure tuned to a fine art.

You would think anyone with half a brain could load a dishwasher.  After all, a dishwasher is basically nothing more than a square box with a couple of wire racks.  How complicated can it be?  It seems to me, just getting it all in there and still managing to close the door should be good enough.  I can't seem to comprehend why cups should be turned a certain way and placed in specific areas while glasses and bowls belong in another.  I don't understand why the forks I load always manage to jam the racks so no one can pull them out.

My long-suffering husband has spent hours patiently trying to explain to me what I'm doing improperly.  He has finally concluded he was unfair in believing that my apparent lack of skill was a deliberate attempt to get out of doing it.  Now, he realizes that I'm severely challenged in that area and that perhaps, I'm beyond rehabilitation.

It's not like I expect him to do it alone.  I am perfectly willing to work with him. I 'm quite capable of unloading this complicated piece of machinery and putting the dishes away.  I'm also adept at washing them before they go in the dishwasher, which makes no sense at all to him.  I regard the thing as a holding tank.  If they're pre-washed and you run out of dishes before they've been through the cycle, they're still clean enough to use, providing you're not too picky.  Of course, I'm the only one in the family to whom that trait applies.

I feel very lucky to have a husband with such a categorical mind.  It is well suited for loading dishwashers but perhaps, its a bit too specialized for certain other household tasks.  Once, he surprised me by building bookshelves around the top of my large walk-in closet because I had boxes of books and no place to put them.  I was thrilled.  But then, he decided to organize the books for me.  By subject matter would have been a good choice.  I could have even handled by titles or authors, but when a couple of thousand books are neatly placed in the shelves by height, that is going a bit too far.

Then, there was the day he decided to do me a favor and organize my clothes, of which I have many sizes ranging from pleasingly plump to grossly obese.  Also, I have clothes for all seasons, from swim-wear to overcoats, and for all occasions, from lounge wear to formal.  Apparently, none of those things mattered. Imagine my surprise, when I opened my closet and found everything in there beautifully and neatly color coordinated.

Still, I can't complain. I've known men who wouldn't be caught dead doing any kind of domestic chore. Every family needs at least one mind capable of bringing order out of chaos.  Loading a dishwasher is definitely considered a manly art in this household.