context: We opened up the dishwasher. It was filled with dishes that had been cleaned. We took out a few dishes and checked to see if they were clean and dry. The dishes were clean and reflected the light that shone on them. Some of the dishes were not completely dry. We used a clean dish cloth to dry the still somewhat wet dishes by dabbing and gently rubbing the spots of water. We hung the dish cloth back up to let it dry. We took the dishes out one by one. We were careful not to have them clang together too loudly and did not want to accidentally break anything. We set the dishes on the counter, trying to create patterns of large dishes on the bottom and small dishes on the top. We opened the cupboard and placed the largest dishes on the bottom. We placed the smaller dishes on top.
question: Where did they place the dishes after unloading them from the dishwasher?
reference: They put the dishes on the counter.
candidate: They laid the on counter.