CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR

I'm a conscientious objector from the Dishwasher Wars. They began so long ago now, it's hard for any of us who are left, to even remember a time before this dreadful conflict took hold.

It must have begun, many many weeks ago, when someone in a hurry attempted to put their used bowl and cups into the dishwasher and found it full of steam-hot clean stuff. Clearly through convenience, they put their empties in the sink and left, trusting in the magical power of the holy Cleaners.

Enraged (beyond reason, the Sinkers would say) the nobility, the late workers, rose up in an altogether incandescent fury at this scandalous disrespect - not just of the cleaners but of "decent people everywhere" who "must" be affronted by such things.

Then one day, someone emptied the dishwasher and put the clean items away, but also refused to fill it with the waiting crockery and cutlery - an action which would teach the Sinkers nothing at all - after all, next morning they'd find their stuff mysteriously clean and ready in the cupboards. Sure enough, the other Shamers found their way to the kitchen and were met with the terrible disaster of empty dishwasher and sink full. The Sinkers saw ancient magic; the Shamers saw nothing but lazy pigs.

Photos began appearing - sinkfuls of plates and bowls and cups, half-filled with cold, grey dishwater, accompanied by jokey barbs. Then the barbs got less jokey, and became steadily infused with Anglo Saxon.

The war began: the propaganda of the passive aggressive posters (many featuring the deathly double-exclamation marks, capital letters, and fearsome underlines)... but the bombs merely dented their target, only fueling the anger on both sides, adding white-hot shame to the anonymous heads of the Sinkers, who buried themselves in their piles of dirty cups.

Still, unobserved and somehow unabashed, they left their things there, night by night, afternoon by afternoon, stacking toppling piles, leaning towers of plates and spoons and porridge-encrusted cereal bowls - there was nothing their Shamers could do, other than thinly threaten to leave a webcam hovering over the sink like the Eye of Sauron, or continue with the devastating war, on Slack, on Teams, on social media. Those wars, the Dishwasher Wars continue.

I am a conscientious objector, as I've made known. I'm a washer-upper if anything. And I do have a feeling there might be double-agents: spies in one camp who cover their anonymous guilt by loudly raging against their real cause... and I don't wish to be counted among those people, or even suspected of double-knavery.

Neither do I wish to be a dirty Sinker, irresponsibly fleeing the office like a fly-tipper leaves the recycling banks at midnight.

I let the bullets fly and the arrows poke the armoured skin. I watch, wondering how this office will recover from this war-torn world of woe, ravaging and burning as the weeks go by. I sigh to myself, knowing the truth, that ancient truth we've always known, and that is perhaps the oldest adage of all.

War has no victors.