Dishwasher Disaster

Posted by kim on December 29, 2008

Actually it wasn’t a disaster, but it’s a funny story to tell, and I like giving my brother a hard time.

I presumed my dishwasher wasn’t draining because the dishes from all the Christmas cookies & candy that we made didn’t get rinsed out first, so I figured the chocolate and peanuts and such clogged it up. I tried several things to no avail to fix it, each time failing and then having to scoop out the water with cups and a turkey baster.  And my hands were wrinkled from having to wash dishes by hand.

So when I hosted Christmas here, my cousin said he’d look at it, but he wanted to run it again to see exactly what the problem was.  Once it was full of water, he said he had no idea, and I was left to scoop once again, this time accidentally washing my new cell phone with the load of soaked towels*. 

Then my brother takes a stab at “fixing” it.  Him and a friend (after a few beers) attempt to pull out the dishwasher to investigate, but can only get it to pull out a few inches, so give up and go to the bar.  Once they’re gone, my son notices that water is leaking into the basement now below the dishwasher area.  I call my brother at the bar, and he’ll “be right there”. 

A few hours later, after getting stuck in a snow bank and having to get pulled out, they show up.  My brother says he fixed the problem and is off to the bar again.  I ask how he fixed it that quick.  He “shut off the water valve”.  Makes me laugh again just to type it.

Luckily one of my new (and sober) friends offered to come over to fix it.  He found the problem – a kink besides the garbage disposal was it.  But when they tried to pull out the dishwasher, they broke a water line, thus the leak into the basement.  But all is well now and the dishes are sparkling clean again.

*My cell phone still worked after going through the washing machine!  My brother suggested I should have just thrown it in the dryer as well to dry it out.  But I simply put it in a bag of rice, as my aunt recommended, so the rice could pull out the moisture.  And it’s as good as gold again.