Paper Plates

You would think, as any rational person would, that after our last adventure, we’d have a short respite from plumbing-related issues.

Not so.

For on the very same day, our beloved dishwasher quit. Again. For the umpteenth time.

Which automatically means at least a week of washing ALL THE DISHES by hand, as it takes at least a week for Sears to “rush” the part directly to us and have a service person come to install it.

When the part arrived, we were delighted and relieved. The hand-washing week was past and we would soon be letting the dishwasher do the work again.

As luck would have it, though, this time when the service person came, the problem was not solved by replacing the electronics as it had in the past. For after performing very important-looking functions with a little box with probes and numbers on it, the service person declared that the front panel was bad.

My wife, who was home at the time, informed the service person that we were VERY CAREFUL to NOT GET THE FRONT WET. This is true: ever since last time, when we were chided about allowing the dishwasher to (heaven forfend!) get moistened, we have been diligent about keeping towels on the counter just above it to catch any errant drip, and why we allowed the front panel to build up a healthy crust of detritus in an effort to demonstrate our commitment to guarding its delicate surfaces from any kind of liquid, including spray cleaner.

And yet, despite our best efforts, the control panel managed to fail anyway.

And of course, the service person did not have the necessary part on his truck. I was told by the disembodied voice on the telephone during my initial call that because this was an “older model” that spare parts aren’t usually kept in stock on the service personnel trucks. I questioned the term “older model.” A 1965 Mustang is an older model. A 1992 Nintendo Super NES is an older model. This is a two-year-old dishwasher, for crying out loud. It cannot claim to be “old” in any way! What I would accept is “obsolete” or “outmoded” or “abomination”. Any design as poor as the one used to create this atrocity should be quickly kicked under a bookcase and forgotten in hopes that the responsible parties can redeem themselves with their next product.

So while we await the delivery of the next part, we spend another week hand-washing dishes.

The next appliance to go belly up in our house is going to be the water heater. Mark my words.