My problem with this is if 'I' (or in code, the current program) actually loads the washer and cleans the kitchen, then these things run in serial.

If I do what I've always done in rust, which in use threads, I get lovely easy parallelization. Async only seems useful when your program doesn't do anything non trivial, but just dispatches to other things, as any one function that takes a long time blocks all other async functions until completion?