Challenges in Getting a Dishwasher Installed

It all seems so long ago now. Before Dick came into my life. Or, should I say, my kitchen?

It was October of last year. I pointed to the large puddle of soapy water on the kitchen floor and suggested to my husband that perhaps it was time for a new dishwasher. He reluctantly agreed -- after all, it was only 25 years old.

In fact, seeing as how only two of the burners on our stove worked anymore, and it was no longer possible to open the two vegetable drawers in the refrigerator, we decided to replace all three appliances whose combined ages reached 75 years. Besides, we reasoned, it might be a bit of a challenge preparing Thanksgiving dinner for ten people with just two working stove burners. Not to mention we didn't own enough life jackets to hand out incase I needed to start the dishwasher while the guests were still here.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving a semi pulled into my driveway and within minutes my nicotine-yellow appliances with fake wood-grain accents were on their way to "That 70's Show" for all I knew. To my horror, however, my full-frontal fake brown plastic wood-grain dishwasher with it's loose gasket hanging out onto the floor like a tired dog's tongue still stood in it's place.

"We don't install those," the burley delivery man said curtly.

Funny, you would have thought the salesperson who handled our measly THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR ORDER would have mentioned that.

Still in its box, my new pearly white dishwasher with the computerized touch pad and upper rack stemware feature went into the garage.

Surely it wouldn't be hard to get a plumber to install the new dishwasher before Thanksgiving, I thought. I called my sister's ex-husband who's a plumber. To heck with family loyalty, I needed that dishwasher installed.

"I have the whole day after Thanksgiving free," he said cheerfully. "I can do it then."

Well, at least now I had four stove burners - whose knobs, I realized Thanksgiving Day, turn the opposite way as my old stove knobs, and so when I habitually turned all four burners to the far right to keep the food warm, all four burners were in reality, on high. It was my son who was the first to smell the burning corn.

The next day the dishwasher was finally installed.

"I still consider you guys family," my ex brother-in-law said solemnly as he walked out of the house with $210.00 of his family's money.

And I've washed every dish by hand since.

Dick, the repairman, comes about every other week to "replace a defective

controller, "as documented on the yellow service sheets he leaves behind, or to "order a new touch pad," or sometimes just to see what I'm doing, which is usually the dishes.

"Return trip set for 12-28-01," reads one service sheet. "Return trip set for 1-23-02," says another. "Return trip set for 1-31-02," documents yet another. That particular return trip, however, was postponed until February 12 due to a back-order on a part. I could have chosen February 14^th , instead, but at this stage of our relationship, I wasn't sure if Dick would expect a pair of silk boxers or something.

Now, when friends ask me to lunch, I tell them I have to see if Dick is on my calendar that day, and if he is, he never commits to a specific time - he prefers I set aside three hours during which he can surprise me.

Friends have stopped calling. The neighbors think I'm operating a Chinese laundry. Even the dog no longer barks when he sees Dick's van pull into the drive, he runs to the door wagging his tail.

He was even here the day I took down the Christmas tree. He got his first artificial tree this year and said he really liked it. He admired aloud the artificial tree storage bag I was shoving my tree into. I gave him the name of the catalogue where he could find one.

It's hard to believe that one day the new dishwasher might actually wash dishes, and Dick and these dishpan hands will disappear from my life forever.

But I'm planning on setting an extra place at the table next Thanksgiving, just to be safe.