Dear Ethicist,
I am a session bass player (I have recorded with Thomas Dolby, Harry Belafonte, and Animal Collective) living in a seventh floor walk-up. I also have mild undifferentiated schizophrenia, though I do not believe this fact is necessarily germane to my question. My downstairs neighbor has informed me that using my dishwasher causes his ceiling to leak rather badly; apparently, there is a ruptured hose somewhere. As a consequence, I do not regularly wash my dishes, and thus cannot cook. I subsist exclusively on takeout from Dumpling Man and multivitamins. I have considered waiting until it rains, and then washing my dishes under the cover of exculpatory precipitation. Would this be ethical?
--Randy Smoot, NY
Under ordinary circumstances, I would advise you to (a) call your super to request repairs, and (b) wash your dishes by hand in the meantime. However, I am feeling blue. I caught my lover in flagrante delicto with a man dressed as a pink bunny-- if you are unfamiliar with "furry fetishists," suffice it to say that discovering this hitherto unpublicized predilection was the occasion for alarm and soul-searching. I have not fully recovered. I regret to say, therefore, that I hope you fucking choke on your dumplings.
