Blessing of a Broken Dishwasher

One morning not too long ago, after having loaded the dishwasher with the first of several loads of dirty dishes, I pressed the start button and nothing happened.

“What the heck?” I said, and pressed it again.

Nothing.

I made sure the door was shut. Still it wouldn’t start.

I checked to be sure nothing was blocking the door, made sure the rotors were free to move, checked the interlock switch, checked the child lock – everything was fine. It just didn’t want to start.

This was unacceptable. Not only is this dishwasher a scant six months old, but it is ENTIRELY NECESSARY in a home where dirty dishes stack to the ceiling before noon.

In a blind panic, I logged onto the Sears Blue Crew web site and started a chat session with a tech. My tech was unquestionably armed with a 1972 Sunbeam toaster manual and boasted a Kenmore product knowledge exceeded only by the guy who aerates my lawn as she asked questions like “is the door closed?” and “are the lights in the house on?” and “is it filling with water but not draining?” and “is it plugged in?” before finally declaring with authority that I’ve got the child lock engaged. The fact that I’d already informed her at the very beginning of our conversation that it was definitely not engaged was apparently lost. I was then asked to press the reset button on the GFI cord on the dishwasher, because the power is out. Through clenched teeth I calmly explained that the lights are on, therefore the power must be on as well. And I re-iterated the fact that the dishwasher was BUILT IN to the CABINET and would require DE-INSTALLATION to reach the power connection.

Upon receiving this helpful bit of information, she asked if I’d like to make an appointment for a service call. Please hurry, I said.

The next day the helpful service tech came out, and after some insightful grunts and murmurs, declared the circuit board to be dead. “I’ve never had to replace one of these before. You’re the first one,” he said. Lucky us.

He then informed us that the part is on order and that we’d be stuck doing dishes by hand for the next 11 days at least.

As I bid goodbye to the service tech and turned back to the now-crippled kitchen, in my mind appeared a vision of several large piles of saucepans, plates, saucers and cups, stacked in teetering Dr. Seuss-style arches. We would be inundated in short order.

But since in our house the watchword is “Persevere,” I rolled up my sleeves and started cleaning out the sink.

Michael asked what I was doing, so I told him I was going to do the dishes by hand. Naturally, he wanted to help.

Seeing an opportunity to provide Michael A) something to do besides chasing the cat and stepping on his sister’s hair, B) an important life skill and possibly even C) a key father-son bonding experience, I told him to go grab a chair and get some gloves on.

We started right in, scouring the sink and rinsing the dishes. Once we had our space ready, he washed and I rinsed/dried/put away. We did pretty well, he and I, plowing a sizable swath through the filthy stacks before he lost interest and decided he was done. I continued on. He asked why, and I told him very matter-of-factly that it needed to be done, even though it was a lot of work.

This cycle continued for several days: the dishes stack up, Michael expresses interest in helping, he does for a short time and then loses interest. One time he even went the distance, working with his mom to the very last dish. His expression of disappointment that they’d completed the load was priceless:

“Oh, great! I want to scrub more dishes! Who will make more dishes? Who, mama??!?”

He had contributed to the family’s workload throughput, and he knew his help was appreciated.

And something else occurred: my wife and I noticed that even after a week of doing the dishes entirely by hand, several times per day, our kitchen has never been cleaner. The sinks are clean and empty, the dishes are kept under control and the counters are clear.

I pondered this observation and considered dusting off one of my pet concepts, namely that our reliance on technology to save us labor is misguided; that perhaps it is the labor saving devices that keep us enslaved.

I happened to catch something on a blog site that supported my theory, or at least lent itself to the idea.

But just yesterday I was brought back to reality as the toll of eight days without a dishwasher finally began to register. With a sink load of dishes and no counter space for cooking, Michael’s mom reached her frustration boil over point:

“Gaaah! I’m tired of doing dishes! I’m not pioneer woman! This isn’t relaxing!”

There goes my plan of shutting off the power to the house this next weekend.

So there you go. We still have a few days before the part shows up and is installed. Until then, don’t expect a lot of writing out of me; I have a stack of dishes to work through.