Becky v. DW

Oh boy oh boy! (Whenever I say oh boy oh boy, I am mentally bouncing in my seat much as you'd imagine Tigger would do.)

I am getting all bloggery now. I put in new and spiffy things--look at me!! What's great is there are some really smart and generous people out there who write code, tell you exactly how to put it into your webpage, and then let you have it for free! Awesome.

For the record, we are still in a general bad place with the dishwasher. I never got a call back from the landlord--I think they're hoping I'll just go away. Last night I decided, okay, I'll be a good little girl and try my very very hardest to rinse and load the thing carefully and see if things will come out clean, and I'll also test it out to make sure it's not broken. That way, I figured, if I do have to go back to them and complain, I'll know for sure whether it's broken, just plain crappy quality, or whether I can forever rinse well and have it work okay.

So last night I got home, looked at my sprawling counterful of dirty dishes, and decided that that was not the night I was going to take all the dishes out of the dishwasher, scrub the crusted bits off by hand, and put new, super-duper-prerinsed ones in there.

I figured I'd run the dishwasher with just water instead to see if it really heats up and sprays and what not. After all, if it's really broken, I can make them come and fix it and maybe never have to do my dishes by hand at all! Appetizing plan.

This is one of those times my plan didn't go so well.

First I ran it for a few minutes and then tested the water in the bottom to see if it was getting hot enough. Warmish, but not hot--like too cold to take a shower in. What would that be--90 degrees? Well, anyway. That didn't necessarily prove it was broken. What I really needed to do was see whether the water was washing everything like it should. I didn't know how I was going to see what it did inside when the door is closed, though... You know, back at the fancy testing kitchen or like how they have on TV commercials, the people with the white lab coats and the gloves and the clipboards.... They have clear doors on those dishwashers. Me, not so lucky. How to keep it from turning off the second I unlocked it and opened the door? Then I remembered how on refrigerators what we used to think was a magic light as kids was just a little white button hidden on the side. (What a day when I found that out. On par with Santa and the Easter Bunny.) All I had to do was find the dishwasher's little white button. After a short investigation, I discovered it was a two-step combo deal at the top where it latched. Aw HAW, my little Soviet prize package (sorry, Cutting Edge reference).... I cracked its devious little code.

With much eagerness (I love to mess with stuff and do experiments on things--remind me to write about the cheese experiment), I grabbed a butter knife, examined the lock, and pushed in the little doohickey with the knife handle so the dishwasher would only think it was closed (dishwashers are so dumb, me so smart, Becky win against dishwasher in battle of wits. Or so it seemed....). I saw the little swirly thing in the bottom start to go around and spit some water out so I could see that it worked somewhat, but not a whole lot was coming out and I thought, "AHA! It IS broken! Vindicated!" But then a few seconds later, it started to pick up speed, spinning faster and faster until the middle section, the taller tube that gets up to the top rack, leaped up in the air and suddenly started just uncontrollably spurting out buckets of water, lambasting me in the face. I try to close the door, which gets the knife stuck in the latch somehow, and the streams of water just keep coming, escaping from around the dishwasher door to douse the floor, the drawers, my clothes, and let's not forget my face much the same way as if I was waterskiing headfirst.... at this point I'm barely able to see, making spittle noises, going, BPPT, BPPT, BPPT!! and frantically trying to wriggle the knife out of the latch, while my kitchen is rapidly turning into a flood zone. "Stop! Stop! I believe you! I believe you!!" I shriek, and I finally manage to get the door shut. Dishwasher obviously taking offense to me calling it broken and coming out swinging. Score: Dishwasher 1, Becky 0. Ho ho... I will never underestimate you again, my treacherous opponent.

Thankfully, no detergent, so no muss no fuss. Paper towel here, paper towel there.. and there... and 12 more over there, done. Had a good laugh, actually. Felt like I was in an I Love Lucy episode and that any minute Ricky was going to come home and tell me to 'splain. Good times.

A little scene of domestic bliss for ya.