Why I Desperately Miss My Dishwasher

splish, splash
Originally uploaded by Nancy Dunne

Yesterday's post was pretty upbeat, if I do say so myself. I was up on time, I was ready to go to work on time, all was well.

Had I a dishwasher, things would have gone exactly to plan and I would have made it in for another day of destickering fun. However, I don't, and something as simple as soaking a grill played havoc with my day and turned all my plans on their collective ear.

Okay, that's a little melodramatic. Here's the Reader's Digest version of what happened (for those that are not as ancient as I am or not from the US, Reader's Digest is a fantastic periodical that contains articles and stories, and was my favorite read when I was in elementary school).

Simon had filled the sink with hot water and soap in an effort to soak the grill and remove the remnants of our last foray into quarter pound burgers for dinner. After I ate my brunch (Frosties or Frosted Flakes in the US, and yes, they are GREAT!) I drained the sink to rinse out the bowl so that the grill didn't soak in soapy milk. That done, I replaced the plug, poured in some dish soap and started the hot tap.

We have a divided tap, and the water that comes out of the hot one is akin to what comes out of our BADLY IN NEED OF DESCALING kettle. As in don't try to wash your hands under it unless you don't mind losing a layer of skin.

The sink was taking forever to fill so I dried my hair and came back. Mostly full. I turned off the tap and went back to finish my hair. In the five minutes that took, the sink drained because I didn't get the plug in all the way the first time. Literally, rinse, repeat. Plug back in and tap on, I ran upstairs to grab my bag, iPod, and other travel essentials. Back downstairs, thankfully without the iPod turned on, and I hear water hitting something that does NOT sound like the grill or the sink.

There was an inch of water on the floor and more spilling out over the lip of the sink. Seems that when one gets the plug in the hole properly the sink, which isn't huge, fills up PDQ and runs over onto the floor. It was 11:58 and I had 9 minutes to catch the bus that would get me to the train station to catch the train that would get me to the second train station in time to catch the train that would get me to Wakefield with enough time to walk to the shopping centre and be at work on time at 2pm. You can imagine my panic.

Rang up Simon at work who said he would come home and take care of it so I could go on to work. But then he said something that made me stay home...I heard him tell his co-workers that I'd flooded the kitchen...and they laughed. I rang up my work and told them what was going on, they of course said I could make up the hours later, and that was that. Much toweling and mopping followed, and after I placed the big fan in the kitchen doorway I had a chance to sit down.

None of that would have happened if we had a dishwasher...or if I knew how to plug a sink.