The Saga of the Dishwasher

*Warning* The following is extremely boring and I won't be offended if you don't read any of it.

We have been meaning to pick up a new dishwasher for quite a while but have been avoiding all the holiday shopping. We thought that yesterday would be better but alas. After going in to work for 5 hours (and sitting on the chair that kills my hip) I met Baddaddy at IKEA to finally purchase the dishwasher. At that point I was already tired and sore and the saga had just begun. We knew exactly what we wanted but still had to walk all the way through everything to the kitchen area to have them print out a paper just so we could walk it back to the cashier. For anyone who has been to IKEA you know that there is a lot of walking involved. Then we stood in line, and stood in line some more, and stood in line some more. I can't help but wonder what all these people are buying just after Christmas?! We finally pay and then we take our little receipt to another area and wait some more for them to bring it out. Finally they bring the dishwasher out and we can leave. It took us an hour and that was going in knowing exactly what we wanted.

So, I was relieved, thinking it was over and we could go home and relax. Boy was I mistaken. Baddaddy first had to get the old dishwasher out. Something you should know about my house is that the previous owners did lots of things around the house themselves and they didn't worry too much about it being done right. On the surface things look OK, but you get underneath and you can see how many things they just jerry rigged. So, back to our saga. They put in new tile after putting the dishwasher in and had not left any clearance to get the thing out. After much pulling, pushing, hammering, banging, and yes some swearing he finally got it out. The old dishwasher was going to go to DI but I don't even know if they will take it considering what he had to do to it just to get it out. (Including crack some of the tile. :( And boy was my little guy reacting like crazy to all the noise.

Then to disconnect everything from the old and connect to the new. First, as Baddaddy put it, "we don't want to start this kids life off telling him the story of how his daddy was electrocuted putting in our dishwasher." So, to turn of the power. I am a little embarrassed to say that I didn't know where the fuse box was. Actually I thought I did...there is one right inside the garage...but it didn't turn anything off. So I call my brother-in-law who has done some electrical work on the house and he walks us outside to where the fuse box is. Which required Baddaddy to tromp through snow up to his knees. But he is alive and well.

Finally we get to the water line and discover that there is a piece not included with the dishwasher. Its just a stupid elbow to connect the water. Off to Lowe's we go. After looking ourselves and repeatedly asking for help and waiting 1/2 hour to get anyone to help us, we get this guy who convinces us we need some other connector piece that will be so much better. He insists that it will work because things are only connected certain ways and sizes and bla bla bla. We both kicked ourselves later because we didn't just buy the other piece at the same time. So, we get it home and find that at we suspected it won't work because the water line has not been installed the way he insisted it would be, it was jerry rigged by the previous owners.

So, back to Lowes...except I couldn't do it. At this point I had already been crying for some time. I was just so tired that I was emotional. And after all of the working and walking around and trying to help down on the kitchen floor, everything hurt! My hips, my back, my feet, my butt, my head. Baddaddy tells me to take a bath and he will go get the part. He doesn't come back and doesn't come back and when he finally shows up he is spitting mad. He got back to Lowe's just in time to have them tell him they were closing. He tries Home Depot which is also closed and two Walmarts who have crappy hardware sections. So, we couldn't even finish installing.

He did get the electrical and the drain pipe hooked up so that today it will just take getting the right part for the water. All in all it took 6 hours of our day to NOT get the dishwasher installed. And of course my sink is full of dishes and the kitchen is a huge mess.

And what did we do for New Year's Eve? I was in bed by 10:15. Sad I know, but oh well. I did however wake up at 12:30 to go to the bathroom. Fairly standard these days. And Baddaddy was still up and hungry. So in the middle of the night we watched an episode of the X-Files and ate waffles. What a way to start a New Year.