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I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

I put a toaster in the dishwasher.  I know; some of you have just decided that I am a total moron, and won’t read further.  That’s...

Skip ahead fourteen years and I know a whole lot more about water and electricity.What I don’t know is whether there are parts in a toaster that might be destroyed by water, destroyed in such a manner that a good drying out won’t cure.But I persisted, and here are some more samples of Conventional Wisdom, from YahooAnswers, with literacy-level intact.The question was “Can I put my toaster in the dishwasher?” These commenters are speaking authoritatively on subjects about which they are completely ignorant, but they are strident in doing so because they are repeating what everybody knows.They are intellectually secure in the center of a vast mob; their wisdom was received, not crafted.It doesn’t need to be crafted, because it is already known, established, beyond question (but demonstrably wrong). A year later the school’s band-room got flooded by a burst pipe.I helped rescue the digital pianos, which were all plugged into a power strip under four inches of water.We could see it from the steps, but no one wanted to go into that water!With the fish tank/hair dryer episode in mind, I took off my shoes and waded in.No problem, until I planted my bare foot on that bare concrete floor a few inches from the submerged power strip, at which point I felt a mild but discernable tingle in that one foot.I unplugged the power strip from the wall above the water line, and the tingling stopped.Onlookers cheered.

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