The dishwasher is broken again. This time, after it just flashed all the warnings and was turned off, I gave it some time to settle down and turned it on again. Not long after that, the kitchen was filled with that weird smell of burning electrical. I think it’s something serious this time.
I still haven’t called the repair people, because I have this THING with the guy who fixes dishwashers in town (I think he is the only authorised repairer for my kind of dishwasher). And no, it’s not that kind of THING. It’s this THING where he always questions what I’ve been doing with it. So the first time he came to fix it I wrote my guy the email below (obviously my guy didn’t live with me at the time and I was at home a lot with my girls and as I wrote to him to daily, writing about the dishwasher was part of the regular news…
“So, the dishwasher guy came at 7.30 this morning to take at look at the broken appliance. I was in the shower, (my teenager) came to get me and refused to deal with him until I was appropriately attired – so I had to deal with him in her purple, fluffy dressing gown. He just has this way of being somewhat condescending about the way people (like me!) look after their dishwashers. Basically he couldn’t find the fault because the last time it faulted was three weeks ago and I turned it off at the wall and the fault was actually a flood fault and now it’s all dry. So there’s no way of telling where the flood came from (that look where he opened his eyes wide at me and tilted his head to the side as if the say “DUH”). He also gave me a talking to about stacking the big plates on the wrong side and not rinsing the dishes enough thus causing the spinny thing to block up and now I need a new one. The upside is he is ordering me a new filter and a new spinny thing, and I’ll have to pay another 93.50 when he comes out to fit them and see if the fault has revealed itself again. Ahhhhhhhhh appliances.
In an effort to prove I am a very capable, hot, working mother (who hadn’t fed her children breakfast yet, had a baby with a stinky nappy and the afore-mentioned dressing gown) I went off and got dressed in skinny pants, high boots and a scarf (for a girl kinda fancy, not gay!) and whisked my children off to school and daycare. He did seem to like me once I got dressed, but as he was not the hot tradey type and we chatted about his kids (daughters as well!), the effort was not really about him thinking me hot, but more about him thinking maybe I was an OK dishwasher owner.”
The third time he came (the second time was when he fixed the spinny this mentioned above) I had a flood fault again, so was SOOOO proud to get him there within 24 hours. He opened it up, and then stopped and said “Who loads this dishwasher?”, and by his tone I actually wanted to lie and blame one of the kids. I did say me. Quietly. “And did you run out of powder this time and use washing up liquid?” Very pointed stare of disbelief in my direction. So I lied and said “No, I know that dishwashing liquid is not made for dishwashers, it froths up too much”. So he pointed behind the drawer and showed me all the froth that had come out the back of the dishwasher and set off the flood fault. I said “That is CRAZY, how could that happen? Wow, maybe when I rinsed the dishes before I put them in I left dishwashing liquid on one of them? Hmmm, crazy…” and I bolted out of the kitchen to smother the child watching me with wide eyes because 1. She knows I don’t really rinse before stacking and 2. She saw me put “just a tiny” splash of dishwashing liquid in thee because I’d run out of powder the day before.
So, I really don’t want to see him. I’m hoping I can convince my guy to handle it next time he comes, while I waltz off to do some other terribly important thing which is not the bloody dishes. I have dry hands from washing up all week.
hehe…. i like your style