Monday, January 26, 2009

Bob's Big Day of Fun

I woke up yesterday morning fully intending to whip the house into shape. Bob gave me a head start by fully vacuuming every room on Saturday, for which I am eternally grateful even though it already needs to be redone, very badly. The pain of living in a rural area....dirt EVERYWHERE!

After I guzzled down some coffee I opened up the dishwasher to unload, reload, rinse repeat.

Gah!

There was about two inches of nasty disgusting water pooled in the bottom of the dishwasher. Yuck.
So I emptied the whole thing out and alerted Bob that there was a problem with the MOST IMPORTANT APPLIANCE IN THE HOUSE!

He took a look and immediately suggested that I didn't properly rinse the dishes, thus causing this horrible problem.

A "discussion" ensued over whether or not I properly rinse the dishes prior to loading them into the dishwasher. For the record, I do. Bob insists that I do not....he is incorrect. This discussion was *ahem* very calm and orderly *ahem* and did not conclude with me crying over my lackluster housekeeping at all.

His wife sufficiently scarred for life, Bob got started on the repair. Various parts of the dishwasher assembly were removed and the investigation began. Ha! What do you know, no food clogging up the mix. Hmmm. VINDICATION!

We began to suspect that the culprit was a serious build-up caused by hard water. We concluded this based on the really gross limescale build-up and calcification, caused by hard water. 1+1=2

Bob took off to get some C-L-R.
I sat on the couch and waited. I mean, really, what else could I do?

When he got back I thought he was going to clean all the parts with C-L-R, reassemble the dishwasher and we'd go from there. He had other thoughts.

I forgot that he is a man.

Instead, Bob chisled out the scale from the removed parts, reassembled the whole works, FILLED the dishwasher with C-L-R and ran it.

****Warning****
Do NOT try this at home. C-L-R is NOT a good dishwasher detergent, unless that is, you also want to clean your kitchen floors.

Luckily, Bob happened to be walking by when the dishwasher started foaming up like a rabid squirrel.

"Oh SHIT! Oh SHIIIIIT!"

That's all I heard, then a mad scramble to the towel cabinet and back to the kitchen.

Being the clever girl I am, I figured out pretty quickly what was going on!

"Turn it off!!!" I yelled helpfully.

"What button do I push?" Bob yelled back though we were now standing three feet apart.

"Cancel! CANCEL!!!" I yelled.

Bob cancelled the dishwasher's operation and opened the door....bubbly!

"OK, so...that was not a good idea," he said and we both started laughing.

Once we cleared out that mess with the Shop Vac, we ran the dishwasher again and shockingly enough, the scale and build-up actually did get cleared away. Hmmm. Maybe NOT the worst idea ever.

After this, Bob got a taste for cleaning and moved on to the master bathroom where he spent about 45 minutes scrubbing the shower and grumbling about mold.

I have personally never seen mold in the shower, but perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough. I do have to admit though that the man can clean like a fiend and that shower has never been so sparkly. Nor has it ever reeked of bleach so badly. But I'll take the good (clean shower) with the bad (eye-stinging bleach fumes).

I don't exactly know what sparked off Bob's sudden desire to scrub everything in sight, but I'm really hoping that I can recreate that magic next weekend!

6 comments:

Tigerlilly said...

I would give anything for a dishwasher.... but hey, at least you got your floors washed too!!!

GO BOB!!!

Jessica said...

Well, it was about a foot in front of the dishwasher that got soaped...so, just a smidge of floor got washed!

Jessica said...

All I could think while reading this was how lucky you are to be able to run your dishwasher and not spend the next three hours peeling your violently shaking dog out from under tables, beds, etc. Phobias aren't pretty.

Anonymous said...

awww.... love!

and next time you run the clr in the dishwasher, consider allowing it to foam a little longer, aiding in the kitchen floor scrub..... ;)

Jessica said...

Ha ha! For real! And if it spilled over onto my stovetop and into my windows and whatnot.....so be it!

Andrea said...

Oh, that doesn't sound SO fun! But thank goodness the dishwasher is fixed! I can't imagine living without one!