Thursday, January 29, 2009

In the words of Frank Barone....

Holy crap!

I just realized that this is my 97th post! I should be working on something exciting, scintillating or profound for number 100, shouldn't I?

Alas and alack, mundane things like snow removal, banishment of dust bunnies and war with the dishwasher have demanded my time. We won't mention the ants. They are like the snow. A sore subject that I am tired of.

Six years ago we replaced our old dishwasher after many years of dependable service. What did I want in a new one? A dependable brand, a white exterior and I wanted to avoid the utensil caddy being in the door. Some models had more bells and whistles than we would ever want or need. That not only boosted the price tag, but signaled more things to break. My husband is very handy and usually handles repairs himself. He didn't like a lot of what we saw.

We chose a Maytag. Good name, white exterior and the way the racks were positioned sounded good in the sales pitch. In reality, my old dishwasher held much more than this one, especially glasses. The top rack only holds our tallest glasses in one row on the extreme right. I am not talking stemmed wine glasses, just tumblers with thick bottoms or the tall glasses we like for water and iced tea. The bottom rack slants the opposite way, so my dinner plates only fit on the left side. Anything larger than a salad/luncheon plate on the right catches on the bottom of the upper rack.

Oh well, at least it works well. Until three years ago when it wouldn't open. The handle broke. The white PLASTIC handle. Bill managed to get the door open and announced we needed a replacement handle and latch assembly. We ordered one online, he installed it and life was blissful again. (It was summer, there wasn't any snow and the ants were residing outdoors.)

Sunday morning we experienced deja vu. I did get the door open, but it required a shoulder wrenching tug and some loud unladylike threats. Sunday evening I located the parts store online, asked Bill if xxx was the part he wanted me to order. Yep, that was it. Good news! It was delivered yesterday. Bad news! The part was only the latch assembly without a handle. We don't NEED the assembly. Maytag doesn't offer that part anymore. The replacement is now under the Whirlpool brand. Neither brand offers just the handle. The Whirlpool part WITH the handle is $7 cheaper than the handle-less Maytag assembly. I hope that isn't indicative of quality. A handle should last longer than three years regardless of brand.

Do you think it all went downhill after this man (Jesse White) died?

I was going to have Bill wear a hat and a red bow tie when the part comes in, but he isn't into wearing costumes. Dang double standards! I can't wait to get out of this French maid's get up. The fishnets and heels are killing me!

2 comments:

andrea said...

i love to read your posts! you write so well that i feel like i'm actually watching you do the things you talk about...it's great morning entertainment!

Nettie said...

Oh my goodness...I know exactly what you're talking about...my first dishwasher came as part of the house when we had the house built 28yrs ago...the dishwasher lasted with little bits of repairs done by my handy hubbie for 20+ yrs & we updated to a newer model as the only real problem was that the water pump was pretty much on it's very last legs.
So, the new updated version looked great...BUT...I am sure that the old model I could fit a lot more things it in. Now the one big stupid thing with the new dishwasher is - the automatic dispenser flap thing on the door...when it automatically pops open to dispel the washing tablet thingy the door doesn't open right up because the upper shelf won't allow it to...blahhh...how dumb is that?...so, I have always just thrown in the washing tablet just before I shut the front door & set it going.
Over the past 6 months the digital read out has started to loose bits of it's red lines...blahhh again to that..."she" the beloved dishwasher still works fine...hubbie did try to fix the red readout but there wasn't any way to access the little suckers.
Hmmm...so much for technology getting "better"...blahhhh