The Day the Dishwasher Died

4^th February 2012

Dear Cassi,

Today my dishwasher died. You would think that this would be of no consequence to me as I rarely use the device. However, my illness over the past month has made washing dishes hard for me, and what good would it do to wash dishes when you will simply get them dirty with coughing? 

   

In any case, I roused today to have my Paul complain about the machine running without stop for the last six hours. I opened the device to see water standing in the bottom and the heating element sizzling away. As clumps of lime the size of large mice have been a commonplace find in this device I added lime solvent. This did no good so I added bleach. I never knew what a bad idea this was until the fumes burnt my eyes and I nearly collapsed from coughing.

   

More than once I had to run outside to let the green goo of my illness out of my lungs, and even with the fans on the house was uninhabitable for an hour and a half. We sat out on the back lawn waiting for the smell to abate. Paul commented that even as I had failed to repair the machine I had succeeded in making teargas.

   

He had ordered a new dishwasher even before I put the liquids in the old one. The machine was a Kenmore and he refuses to do business with Sears ever again. They have a tendency to kick washing machines until they start running again and call them fixed. In a week or two I’ll have a new dishwasher. I didn’t want the old one, but what can you do?

Stay safe, little sister

Richard Leland Neal