This is how the bath monster eats his grapes.

Have I ever mentioned that we have what I can only hope is the worst dishwasher in the entire world? Now that I think of it, I have probably been too busy regaling you with the way the rest of our appliances have treated us since we moved into this house. (We don’t seem to be all that fortunate with those things.)

I’ll start at the beginning, then. Our kitchen was remodeled sometime in the 80s. (That was a TERRIBLE idea, as anyone living with any remodeling done in the 80s will agree. Melamine. MELAMINE. Over particle board. Seriously, people, that was a Bad Decision.) At that time, this house got its very first dishwasher. It is still here. I wasn’t in a position to shop for dishwashers in the 80s, so I can’t say whether this particular model was a good buying decision, but it’s a horrible, horrible dishwasher.

How is it possible that it is simultaneously so powerful that it flips all the items in the top rack over so they fill with water, but so puny that it cannot wash even the cleanest of dishes well enough to be worthy of going back into our cupboards? I’ve learned, since I lived here, to suspiciously hold any glass I’m thinking of using up to the light before I fill it. I learned that The Hard Way. We also, every so often, have the experience of smelling burning plastic, and realizing we will soon be throwing away a tupperware container, cutting board, or measuring spoon, since the Powerful But Not Effective Jets have once again knocked a plastic item onto the heating coils in the bottom of the dishwasher.

Sadly, this thing NEVER clogs. It ALWAYS runs. And given the number of other major appliance failures we’ve had, it’s been hard to justify dismantling the entire kitchen to put in a new dishwasher. (Oh, did I leave out the part where they put the tile floor in without taking the dishwasher out, so we’ll have to remove the counter, do something about the floor, put in the new dishwasher, and then re-install the counter top? Good times!)

Now, though, it’s actually destroying ITSELF. Various plastic doojobbers have been falling off the inside of the dishwasher and onto the heating elements. And now, parts of the racks are actually breaking off. Sorry, Awful Dishwasher, I think your days are numbered.