Dishwasher 1, Hubby 0

On Tuesday the fifth, the day started out pretty well. My father's cleaning ladies came in at 10 and performed their usual magic on the rest of the house, leaving the kitchen alone as requested. They left an hour later, just as Hubby arrived with the dishwasher. Now this is a regular sized dishwasher in a cardboard box; however, it was being picked up in an Aveo hatchback. No small feat, but when my husband puts his mind to something, you don't even try to doubt him. So far so good.

With a clean house and a tiny kitchen filled with a huge box, the three of us piled into the Aveo and Dad treated us to A&W.

When we returned, Hubby got to work and quickly removed the old dishwasher and emptied the cupboard under the sink, putting everything onto the countertop above. Now, we live in a 28 year old townhouse and none of the fittings seemed to work. So, Hubby decides that we may have to do the dishwasher, sink and cupboard all at once

So, trying to be of SOME help, I grabbed a basket and started removing all the cleaning supplies and other items from the counter, while Hubby waited below, his head in the cupboard. All of a sudden, a screwdriver that I hadn’t seen rolled off the counter and hit Hubby in the face, just below the eye. We both screamed at once and dogs and Dad all came scrambling to find out what was wrong. I screamed “I just hit Tony in the eye with a screwdriver”. It actually hit the cheekbone below the eye, but his eye was a little blurry.

We put ice on it right away and tried to get to a clinic but it was closing and the eye was feeling better so we continued on to a hardware store to buy parts to hopefully make the dishwasher work and to Costco to pick up some more dinner as cooking was again out of the question.

After dinner it was on to another hardware store to buy parts we couldn’t find at the first one; however, nothing seemed to fit our antiquated pipes. While trying to figure it out, Hubby mentioned he had something in his eye and asked if I would look. Yes, there was something…..blood! So, I ended up driving to the Emergency at 9 pm and fortunately we got through very quickly. It turns out that he was rubbing his eye, which opened up a small tear. The doctor said “don’t look at it, leave it alone and rest for a couple of days”.

I am a woman of deep faith and I will let you know that while I was sitting beside my husband in the Emergency waiting area, with him holding an ice bag to his eye, and me feeling guilty about being clumsy, I started to pray that everything would be okay – with the eye, the dishwasher, etc. I even asked God if maybe he was trying to tell us we shouldn’t have spent the money on the machine in the first place. I truly believe that He allows things to happen for reasons, and those reasons are usually lessons. The lesson I learned that night was not about dishwashers – it was how much I loved my husband and how I couldn’t live without him. The funny thing is 8 years before, in a different ER he proposed to me because I was in an accident and he spent 3 hours in the waiting room realizing the same thing.

Anyway, back to the dishwasher. We went home, and went to bed. As I figured, Hubby figured out a plan by morning and doctor’s orders about resting went out the window. He went back to hardware store number one, got some new parts and had the job done in no time. A few solders here, a cut or two there, some new hoses and we had a wonderful working dishwasher!

Since the install I have been doing my best to find something that it WON’T clean and so far the machine has won. I will happily keep trying though.