Today was a glorious day in which our family purchased a new dishwasher. And all I can say is that we were due. Now I’ve had some less than perfect dishwashers, having lived in college housing and whatnot. I had one that wouldn’t start a normal wash cycle unless you first started it on a different cycle. And one that started leaking orange, smelly liquid from it (though admittedly we found out that was because of a problem with the sink). And then there was the one that was so old it actually hooked up to the faucet of the sink. I’m pretty sure you can’t even buy them like that anymore.

The one we replaced today, though, takes the cake. The trouble all began when one of the front wheels for the bottom rack melted and fell off. And then the other followed suit. The problem, apart from the fact that it was rather difficult to pull the bottom rack out to load it, was that it then dragged on the bottom and got in the way of the whirly-gig on the bottom. As you can tell, I am well educated in the area of dishwashers and can cite all the technical terms. Anyhow, the dishes weren’t getting very clean and the racket of the whirly-gig whacking the bottom rack was annoying since we usually run the dishes at night. So we got some little bungee cords and strapped the bottom rack up to the top rack. The top rack would support the bottom, and it wouldn’t drag. Problem solved! You know, other than when a bungee cord would snap as you were unloading it and hit you. But that only happend like once. A week.

Then the back wheels melted. We could still kinda put them on, though. So it was a delicate process of loading then putting the back wheels on just long enough to push it back. And then we lost one of the back wheels. And then the other was melted beyond repair. Solution? Bungee cord the whole thing together! Have the bottom rack completely suspended from the top rack. Just let it kinda dangle there. Only problem with that was the bungee cords impeded the spinning of the top rack whirly-gig and the cups didn’t get real clean. Oh, and I guess there’s all the other problems inherent with having absolutely no part of the bottom rack grounded. Like the difficult of unloading and loading between the jungle of bungee cords. And the fact that you didn’t want to undo the cords because you’d have to crawl into the back of the dishwasher to reattach the ones in the back. And just the general ridiculousness of it all. See for yourself:

The early bungee cord stage

I mean, there are only like 5 bungee cords here. Child's play.

It's very difficult to keep the rack level when it's hanging by so many bungee cords of varying lengths and stretchability.

I was telling a friend about the whole incident one night and he said something to the effect of the whole bungee cords being a kind of hick thing to do. Maybe he’s right. I don’t know, though. I’m kinda proud of the innovation and creativity used to push that dishwasher way beyond the bounds of its usefulness. That said, I’m happy to be done with the bungee cords. It just doesn’t feel that good to have one hit you in the face one morning when you forget to unlatch from the top first.

And we’re loving our new dishwasher! You know, after we almost flooded the house trying to install it.