Usually when some big-ticket appliance, like our dishwasher, begins to show signs that it’s struggling to perform, my husband tries to tell me what I’m doing wrong. His reasoning was that we’ve now got five people living in the house instead of four. What?
I understand the current problem seems to have only started after our “adopted” daughter moved in, but I’m still pretty much the only one who loads the dishwasher. Not that I’m complaining (I kind of am), but I’m not doing anything differently. It does not even remotely make sense as to why one more person living here would make the dishwasher quit working properly.
I wrote about its eventual demise back in February when it started a low rumbling roar during some of its cycles. It sounded like a monster had taken up residence and the door was going to explode open. When it started to grow pink mold inside around the vent, the detergent cup, and the gasket, I knew it was true, a monster was living in there and was leaving its slimy residue behind waiting to be set free.
Also, the dishes were not always coming out clean. So my husband took apart the vent again and the pink slime had coagulated inside. He cleaned it out, then Googled the problem.
“It needs to be run with vinegar every once in awhile.”
“Why? We’ve had this dishwasher for 15 years. Why do I suddenly have to start running vinegar through it?”
“There’s one extra person living in the house.”
I didn’t buy it. He cleaned the vent out again. Then my oldest daughter texted me one day:
“I just pulled a salmon-colored pink blob out of the upper sprayer of the dishwasher. Since I don’t normally pay rent, I’d be willing to kick in some money to help pay for a new one.”
I guess I needed that kind of a sign to finally end my long relationship with our dishwasher. That weekend I told my husband, “Something really is not right when one of our kids offers to help pay for an appliance, and telling our adopted daughter to move out will not solve the problem.”
We went shopping for a new one. I wanted the exact same dishwasher in the newest model they had. Of course, the salesman talked us into a fancier model, with not only bells and whistles but extra jets. Sometimes I think manufacturers get carried away with extras and forget the purpose of the machine. It was not cleaning the way one would expect an additional $200 should clean. The extra sprayer for the silverware reduced the pressure needed to wash the items on the top rack, which were not getting clean, much less the silverware.
It was stainless steel which resulted in the wettest dishwasher I’ve ever seen. And because I never use heat-dry and there was only a tiny vent on the side of the door, nothing was even remotely dry. The salesman told me I needed to open the door after the load was finished. I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally stand around and wait for the dishwasher to finish its cycle.
I hated it. People are often baffled by my lack of desire for high end appliances, but I just feel like less is more. If I was in doubt over whether the simpler model was the one I should get, its price dropped fifty dollars from the day I went in to complain to the day I purchased it. I ran the dishwasher. The dishes are clean. So is the silverware.
The universe was saying, “Here’s your sign.”
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.”or follow her on Twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.
