Unfried chicken (the coating came off the top when I turned it. Grrr!), 2 half ears of corn, and a big-ass serving o’ pole beans.
I don’t know what we’ll be having for dinner tonight – probably sandwiches, because we have to drive for a million years to the farm where we get our free-range chickens, and we’ll get home too late to cook, so everyone will be responsible for getting their own food. No doubt whatever Fred makes for himself will look better to me than whatever I make for myself, and vice versa, ’cause that’s always the way it goes.
Damn, my monitor is filthy. When I can’t see what I’m reading anymore, I might think about cleaning it…
So, here’s a rule of life you can count on. When the guy who’s coming to check out your dishwasher is supposed to come between 12:30 and 3:30, and you’ve decided to wait until 11:30 to take your shower, because you want to do some housecleaning while you’re still wearing your stinky exercise clothes, he will call at 11, say he’s 15 minutes away, and ask if it’s okay to come now. You will tell him that’s fine, think to yourself that 15 minutes is plenty of time to finish sweeping the kitchen and then go change, and continue sweeping the kitchen. He will knock on your door 5 minutes after he called, just as you’re getting to the end of the sweeping. You will panic and sweep all the crap under the refrigerator, and go answer the door.
Trust me.
I let the service guy in to check out the dishwasher, and he asked a few questions, which I answered the best I could because let’s be honest – I don’t pay that much attention to the dishwasher and the sounds it makes. He started it up to see what it would do, listened for half a second, and said (approximately) "Your air gap floopy is clogged."
"My what?" I said with great intelligence and cunning, showing him that I knew what was what and wouldn’t be talked down to.
"Your air gap floopy." He reached over to the sink, removed the silver cover:
unscrewed the plastic cover, and removed a large piece of spinach-looking gunk from the air gap floopy.
Apparently, that wasn’t a built-in soap dispenser, as we’d assumed lo these many months. Good thing we never tried to use it as one.
"That should take care of it," the service guy said. We stood around and listened, he commented that we must have cats (because of the refrigerator magnets), but he didn’t see any, I explained that they’re scared of strangers and were most likely hiding under the beds upstairs, and then awkward silence ensued.
Self, I thought to myself, if that’s really all it takes to fix this problem, then I’m going to kick your ass. (Pause to visualize that, won’t you?) Because SURELY clearing the air gap floopy is covered in the MANUAL that came WITH the dishwasher, which the previous owners kindly left behind, and YOU didn’t even bother to look. And when I’m done kicking your ass, I’m going to kick Fred’s, ’cause he didn’t look either.
To my relief, after about ten minutes, the washer made some sort of noise, and the service guy took out his drill and pretty much had to take the dishwasher apart. I wandered off to sit in front of the computer and pay bills while he worked. After 20 minutes, the mystery was solved. We need (I only know this because he wrote it on the bill) a new sequencing switch. I’d tell you what it is, since he so carefully explained it to me, but I could feel his words going in one ear and out the other, so I’ll simply tell you that it’s something the dishwasher needs and it’s important and all.
Since the dishwasher’s no longer under warranty (of course), he promised to call when the part was in (3 -10 business days) with an estimate.
Sucks to be the spud about now, since she’s the one responsible for washing the dishes after dinner.
Just call her Spuderella.
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04/25/2002