I’ve been a stay-at-home mom and housewife since September and the other day the most horrible thing almost happened. I almost lost the most important appliance in our home. My dishwasher. My precioussssss.

Who knew you were supposed to clean these things more than once a .. well…ever. Because we’ve had it maybe three years and we’ve never bought that crap you’re supposed to use to break down all the gunk caked around the drain.

So, I finally pulled out all the tools my dad bought me so long ago and decided I was going to figure out what was wrong with the dishwasher and save myself from sticking my hands in disgusting dirty dish water.

I must have looked like quite a sight and I’m sure Hubby would have laughed if he’d walked in and say my rear in the air and my head in the dishwasher, learning how to use a manual drill (I suppose that’s what it was called) to remove screws from the top of the filter in an attempt to find what was underneath that might be keeping the water from draining where it was supposed to instead of onto my kitchen floor.

I never did get the filter off the drain but I did manage to pull three shards of glass and the filter of a sippy cup from the drain. We haven’t used sippy cups in almost three years, so obviously neither of us have ever attempted to clean the dishwasher out.

I felt somewhat good about myself, even though I was certain I hadn’t solved any of the issues causing my poor dishwasher distress. I really did think about begging it not to leave me, complete with falling on my knees and weeping while crying “Don’t you leave me! You can’t do this to me! I neeeed you!” and bursting into tears, but I knew that wasn’t going to solve anything. I eventually managed to clean out some filter, drain-thingee on the door, amazingly without throwing up, but not without gagging at least 18 times. I have no idea how all THAT got in there, nor do I know what THAT was. All I know was that it was brown, gooey and looked as if one of my cats threw up in there.

I eventually figured out how to put the filter back on, tested it and seemed to have done something because the leaking was almost non-existent. Hubby purchased some cleaner the next day and so far, so good. Looks like my hands can avoid dirty, slimy dishwater for a little while longer, and my husband can avoid hearing me utter “Oh, Lord. Oh no. Oh my” every time some sort of mystery food slips past my hand.