%#** Dishwasher

Yesterday when I walked up to JC's house I expected to find him sitting in front of his space heater with his coat on and a blanket over his legs again. He's been fighting a kidney infection for several days and has been feeling really crappy.

When I knocked on the back door I heard JC yell, “I'm in the kitchen!” I was surprised to see him up and cussing; yanking and pulling on the dishwasher trying to get it out from under the kitchen counter.

“The damned dishwasher died!” he said, giving it another mighty yank for good measure. “It won't come out and I can't figure out what's holding the bastard in.”

I hung my coat over a chair and laid down on the floor to look underneath. “The linoleum is curled up in front of the legs!” I told him. “Maybe that's what's holding it.” JC found a utility knife and I cut some of the curled up flooring out of the way. We both lifted, yanked, pulled and cussed but it still wouldn't come out. “Let''s take a break,” JC panted, “the sun's still shining out on the deck, let's go out, relax a bit, and think about this.”

He poured a glass of wine for me and a glass of water for himself, (He's not supposed to drink while he's on his latest prescription.) “There's definitely something holding that sucker in there,” I said, pointing out the obvious, “maybe we need to drain the water out to make it a little lighter!”

“I already dipped all of the water I could get out of it,” JC said.

After our pulse rates dropped down to almost normal we tried again, using a crowbar to pry the front end up. No matter how hard we pried, pulled and cussed, the rotten piece of crap (JC's description) refused to come out any more than about a third of the way.

Finally, after yet another rest stop, JC shined his headlamp down the gap on left side and said,”It looks like there's a piece of wood jammed in under the bottom!” Sure enough, all it took was a little tweak in the right place with the crowbar, one more mighty yank, and it popped right out. A six inch piece of wood, probably used to level the dishwasher, was the culprit. We both breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out that we had declared success a bit too soon though, because while we were wrestling the damn thing onto a cart to roll it outside, the drain hose fell down and was running water onto the floor. We were too busy to notice because when we found out that it wouldn't fit through the kitchen door, we had to back track and hump it out the back door onto the deck. The son of a bitch must have had five gallons of water stored somewhere in it's innards and it all drained out on the floor.

JC mopped and cussed until he got it cleaned up. We both were pooped, mostly from cussing the friggin thing.