The Fish Free 411

Our dishes reek of fish. I can't think of one single person who has eaten at our house and had guts enough to admit it but let's face it, it's true. I called the city to ask if other people in our neighborhood have similar complaints. They even sent someone to the house to 'test' our water. Turns out we don't have fish in our water. (I STILL think that's funny).

So now, not only do our dishes remind us of eating on the pier, we also are pretty lucky if they come out of the dishwasher without bits of sand and other river-related stuff. And yes, we rinse religiously prior to loading. Last week, our dishes came out with a delightful new film called baked-on soap. Ever heard of it? It tastes great with FISH!

I'd had it. After two sink-fulls of hand washing, it was time for a new dishwasher. We headed to Sears (after reading all about ratings on Consumer Reports, of course) and picked up our pick. Ahhh...feels good to take charge, eh? We'd never installed a dishwasher but surely it's not impossible...

Things were going pretty great- exceptional, I'd say- until what we thought was the valve that turned off the main water line didn't actually turn the water off at all. Picture this: clean kitchen and high pressure water spraying EVERYWHERE in an uncontrolled manner. First of all, the hose that connects water to a dishwasher is not a kinkable hose. Did you know that? Secondly, the water that connects to a dishwasher is super, duper pressurized- way more than, let's say, holding a garden hose with your thumb. And lastly, the water to a dishwasher is SUPER hot- SUPER hot. JD stood there with his thumb pressed over the tip of the hose and I did what any self-respecting wife/helper would do.

I grabbed every towel we own and then started screaming "What do I do??? What do I do???" He looked at me and said, "Go out in the front yard, open the cement box by my car and turn off the main water line at the street". Seriously...there's a box like that out there? Well alrighty then...I'm on a mission:
How many times have I mowed over this and not really stopped to ask what the durn thing was? Hmmm...learn something new every day. Oh, right, it says "water meter" on it- got it. Great. Moving on...opening the water meter thingy. Sure hope nothing bites my finger off when I try to open this thing...

Um. Yeah. There's a valve in there alright- about three feet down this black, BLACK WIDOW vacation destination. I tried. I seriously tried. I gave myself a pep talk about mind over matter. I thought that maybe if I was quick enough, the black widows wouldn't 'stick' to my skin but I...well, I....just couldn't do it. So I ran back into the house and told JD I couldn't bring myself to put my arm in that hole, to which his response was, well, let's just say this is a PG13 blog and it didn't make the cut. So my new job was to plug the hole with MY thumb while HE turned off the main water line.

Seriously ya'll. That water was HOT. My thumbs (yes, I had to use BOTH) began to crumble at the pressure. I tried to stick the hose against towels, but that made matters worse. Then I got the great idea to just blast the water into the garbage can and hope to God JD could get the water turned off before it filled all the way up. Luckily he did and the rest is history...here she is in all her glory! The Kenmore Elite:

And the best part? NO MORE FISH SMELL!!!!