When we got our dishwasher a few years ago, I was surprised that the dishes didn’t come out totally dry. There was a thin film of moisture on everything. That made me kind of mad, because we spent a good amount of money to buy a very nice dishwasher unit. It even blows out steam through a vent in the front during the drying process. Later on, there was a leak, and I called the repair man out to fix it. I mentioned that our dishes don’t get really dry, and he said that it was normal. He said you need to use a rinse agent (Jet Dry) to get the dishes nice and dry. I thought that this was strange. Why couldn’t the dishwasher manufacturer let the owner specify how long to leave on the drying cycle so that the dishes get dry? I mean, just keep the heat element and the fan going for another half hour. When we lived in Japan, we had a “dish dryer”, which was basically an enclosed dishrack that had a small heating element and a fan with timer. That worked pretty damn good. How hard would it be to work something as basic as that into a modern dishwasher, for goodness sakes?!

My only thought is that there must some kind of deal going on between the dishwasher manufacturers and the folks at Jet Dry. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in cahoots together, those bastards. Some friends of ours bought a brand new dishwasher recently, and the exact same thing happened. They complained that the dishes weren’t completely dry, and the company told them, “Use Jet Dry”. I’d love for somebody to prove me wrong and tell me of a dishwasher model that can completely dry dishes. I’d probably buy it.