Fabric Softener Woes

I was telling my boss about a former flatmate I had who, in his infinite wisdom, thought that washing detergent tablets (the sort that come in a box with a netted bag) go in the washing powder drawer. They do not! Believe me, it'll just end up clogging the drawer and you'll spend the next few hours getting the now gunky detergent out of the drawer. The correct way (as the vast majority of people know) is to put the tablets into the bag then put the bag in with your laundry.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I don't understand why you have to put the tablets in the bag. From what I can tell, by spending hours on end watching my cloths going round and round, the bag is supposed to get everywhere. If I was to put the tablets in without the bag (not that I've ever done this) I'm pretty certain that the tablets would get around the same but independently. Surly this can't have a detrimental effect on my cloths, it's not as if I'm not putting enough detergent in or too much for that matter, it would be the same.

Perhaps this is like making a cup of tea. When I use loose leafs instead of a tea bag, I don't get tea, I get a cup of hot water, no wait, that's not right. So I can see no reason to use the bag but, saying that, I don't think I'd ever have the courage to put a load on without the bag.

That seemingly normal conversation aside, my next laundry related issue was the fact that my fabric softener clogs up my fabric softener drawer. I think I know why this happens, the fabric softener is mostly fat (apparently this is how it works) and the fat congeals to clog up the drawer. How can I unclog it? My best attempt so far has been to pour boiling hot water into it in the vain hope that it will melt the fat and clear up the mess.

I figure someone, somewhere knows how to sort this out, until I meet this person, I'm going to try and splice this into every conversation I have “Hi, I'm Josh, do you know how to unclog a fabric softener drawer?” I figure it'll be a nice ice breaker.