I confess. I think I killed our dishwasher. Not my father, who loves washing dishes, the mechanical one that sits under the kitchen counter. Not sure whether to blame laziness, stupidity, pride or a tired brain. Regardless, it was me.
About a week ago we began having issues with our dishwasher leaving residue and water spots on all the dishes. You could feel the chalky residue. I called to check on the warranty and was informed that it had expired a few days ago. Figures, right? Anyway, after explaining the issue, it was suggested that we clean the filter. I have never had to clean a filter on a DW before. I have had multiple dishwashers in my life that have run well for 5-6 years before we wore them out, never having to clean a filter. I followed directions and pulled the filter, which was coated in what I can only guess was the melted, not fully dissolved coating for those convenient soap pods we use. Thoroughly scrubbed and replaced, we ran a vinegar rinse also to be sure it was really clean. It was better, but not completely residue free.
A couple evenings later, we had run out of those cutesy little multi colored, all in one, miracle worker dishwasher pods. So, what do I do? Wash all those dishes by hand? Nope. Wait to run the dishwasher until after we bought more pods? Nope. I squeezed in a little liquid dish soap. I can hear you all laughing! Although most of us have never had it happen in person, we have all probably seen a commercial with the suds pouring out of a dishwasher and panicked people scrambling to fix it. It wasn’t quite that bad, merely a puddle of suds and a blinking error code to let me know I had done something stupid.
Since it was bedtime when I found out, I tossed a towel over the puddle to sip it up and tried to turn the dishwasher off so I could deal with it in the morning. Easier said than done. Each time I pressed the power button, the control panel would momentarily go dark, only to come to life again with the blinking error code and loud beeping. After trying this a few times, I googled how to fix it. The easiest solution was turning off the circuit breaker to it for 60 seconds. In their words, “that should reset it”. Right, no reset. So, I turned it off and kept it off. Each morning this weekend I have turned it on to see if it has reset yet. Nope. Just more beeping and blinking to remind me that I may have killed a barely over one year old dishwasher.
The next step is to call our appliance guy. Yea, I have one on speed dial for maintenance issues and installs. He’s been a part of the family for at least 15 years. He will probably tease and lecture me on the ills of using stuff that shouldn’t be used. Unless I beat him to the punch by making fun of myself as I explain what happened. Which, as my friends know, will probably be what I do.
We all make mistakes. I confessed to my husband, and he is not happy, but he still loves me. I am learning not to be too hard on myself, to learn to laugh at non fatal to humans mistakes. I hope you will do the same today. Cut yourself some slack and learn to laugh the little things off.
An Ordinary Life 