Enjoying our dishwasher again

           The hum of water spinning in the dishwasher was music to my ears.
       It had been more than two years since we last used the dishwasher. An ongoing leak put a stop to washing dishes the modern way in the Parker house.
           Sometime back, I noticed water had run on the kitchen floor. It even soaked a small kitchen rug.
         On occasion it ran through a hole in the floor to the utility room in the basement. The last time it was as if someone had dumped a bucket of water into our basement. The subfloor under the dishwasher showed signs of a leak.
         We had an appliance fellow come look at the dishwasher sometime back. He pulled the bottom panel off the machine and watched it run for a while.
         “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he assured us. “It’s not leaking.”
        We gave him a check, thanked him and I filled the dishwasher with dishes, thinking that it was one of life’s mysteries. 
        That’s when the big leak happened. It was enough water that we had to take a bath towel and wipe off the washer and dryer in the basement. Thankfully it didn’t short either machine out.
         Since then, we’ve been washing dishes the old fashioned way, by hand.
         Neither Debbie nor I enjoyed the task of washing dishes.
       We often would let them pile up and spill onto the kitchen counter. Sometimes, we ran out of forks and spoons and had to wash dishes to eat supper.
        It didn’t help that I had a bad habit with good intentions of washing the dishes. I would fill the sink with hot water and dishes. I’d wash a few dishes and then leave the rest for later. Sometimes it would be the next day. It drove Debbie nuts as she uses the sink to fill her old milk jugs with water for the animals.
       At first, we thought the problem with our dishwasher was a clogged drain. Another fellow I visited with said it was the door seal. He even went into detail, telling me about an experience with a new dishwasher that he had purchased at one of the big box stores that leaked.
        Finally, we decided to call a different repairman earlier this month.
       He and another fellow showed up at our door on Monday a week ago. They looked the dishwasher over, checked the drain and tested the door seal.
        They discovered that the dishwasher wasn’t level and that water was possibly pouring out of the bottom of the door.
        They asked me if I saw water on the kitchen floor and told them yes.
      The dishwasher has two small wheels on the back to make it easy to move. To hopefully remedy the problem, the repairman took the wheels off to lower the dishwasher in the back and then leveled it up in the front.
        It’s been working great since. No water running on the floor or pouring into the basement.
        It’s nice to have some of the luxuries of life.
        I don’t take them for granted.
     I grew up in the 1960s and 70s with a dishwasher. My mom wanted one and somehow on a limited budget, bought one for our Tulsa home.
        It was a basic dishwasher and did a great job.
     It malfunctioned one year when a switch broke and the heating element stayed on. It melted the silverware basket and my mom had to toss it in the trash, silverware and all.
        She bought another dishwasher to replace the damaged one and it worked great.
     We also enjoyed having a washer and dryer and window air conditioner for those hot Oklahoma summers.
      I missed having a dishwasher when I moved to Missouri to go back to school. My duplex didn’t have a dishwasher. When I moved to Iowa, there was no dishwasher in my first apartment in Millersburg nor in North English when I lived on Main Street in a converted apartment.
       My first apartment in Montezuma didn’t have a dishwasher. The counter in that apartment was lower than standard. Washing dishes by hand was a guaranteed backache from stooping over.
         It wasn’t until I got married and lived in a small house with Debbie on Jefferson Street in Montezuma that I had a one again when someone gave us a portable dishwasher. The landlord let us plumb it into the house as a permanent fixture.
         After moving to the country, our house had an old dishwasher. It was a clunker and at times, I wanted to toss it out the door for the birds to land on.  
        We replaced it with a new Maytag dishwasher in February 2015.
         I’m happy to have the dishwasher working again. I’ve washed three loads so far and it’s working great.
       I thank God every day for the many blessings and luxuries in life that I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy to this day.
         Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.