Z gets jobs done

Day four without booze and I’m bored.  I still don’t miss alcohol itself, but dinnertime is just so uninteresting.  And the grape juice is far too sweet.  Why do drinks have to be sweet?  A sweet drink doesn’t go with savoury food (unless it’s a Big Mac of course, in which case nothing but Diet Coke will do).  I think this will have to be the last day.  It’s taking me two hours to get to sleep and I’m still awake for two or three hours in the night and can’t sleep past 7.30 in the morning.  I’m sure my liver is as bored as I am, with nothing to do.  It’s usually such an energetic organ, always cheerfully busy.

Oh dear, I’ve been sitting here for several minutes assigning personalities to each of my organs.  I think I’m cracking up a little bit and had better pull myself together.

In fact, I’ve been quite sensible and purposeful today, dealing with various bits of domestic admin, writing letters, making phone calls.  I’d planned this, as I’d succeeded in catching up with almost everything else, but was nearly waylaid by the dishwasher.  It’s been struggling a bit recently, you see.  It’s not very old, about four years I think, but for several weeks there has been water left in the bottom of the machine at the end of every wash.  I’d press the reset buttons and it drained away, but it was not at all satisfactory.  I’d got to the stage of having to clean the filter and the rotor arms after every use, sponge out the last of the water or else it got gungy after a day or two, and rinse crockery before putting it in, or the cleaning wasn’t good enough.  I was sure that there was something blocking it, but there seemed to be no way of cleaning it completely.

So today, before giving in and phoning to get it serviced, I decided to make one last effort.  I consulted the manual.  I know, darlings, a last resort indeed.  And it took a long time, because there was an awkward little screw that needed an Allen key, but I did the job and removed a surprising amount of limescale (surprising because we have a water softener and I use dishwasher tablets that are supposed to mean you don’t have to use salt, so there shouldn’t be limescale) and I hope it’ll be okay now.

What I don’t get, though, is why they make them so difficult to keep clean.  Those rotor arms, for example.  Things like mustard seeds and melon pips get caught in them and block the holes. Why don’t they make them so you can take them apart?  I have to poke out blockages with a pin and bang it against the sink to shake the bits out.  And the filter, you have to be able to bend right down to take it out to wash it.  What if you can’t?

Year 7 Music again tomorrow.  Whoopee!

9 comments on “Z gets jobs done

  1. Roses

    One minute! I turn my back for one minute and you start doing odd things!

    No, I completely get you with the avoiding dependency. I too have felt uncomfortable with the frequency of which I’ve been reaching for the gin.

    The thing I admire the most about you is your straightforward attitude to these things.

    You are awesome!

    Reply
  2. Z

    As Weeza puts it, JFDI. Though I’ve been hiding away from doing a few things, they’re always far more straightforward than you thought they were going to be and you feel better for having bitten the bullet.

    Reply
  3. Tim

    JFDI, love it! I spend far more time prioritising things (must, need, want, should etc.)than just f doing them. I’ve accidentally set myself up with ten days’ worth of ‘must’s, so I’m definitely in JFDI mode.

    Reply
  4. martina

    Around here they tell people to rinse dishes off before putting in the dishwasher. Maybe that is to avoid incidents with pips and seeds clogging the works?
    The JFDI moment this week was installing new curtain rods in 3 rooms. Not fun, but the end result was worth the effort.

    Reply
  5. mig

    There’s stuff you can buy which supposedly cleans the dishwasher’s interior bits – you just tip it in and run the machine without anything in it. It probably won’t do pips and seeds though.
    My newish hoover is similarly difficult and time consuming to keep clean and if I don’t do it it flashes red lights and then stops working.

    Reply
  6. Blue Witch

    Am I right in remembering that your dishwasher is a Siemens? If so, it should have a 5 year guarantee.

    We’ve been having problems with ours which is only about 3. And I rinse items, and use dishwasher cleaner regularly, as well as salt and all-in-one tablets. Not impressed, but loath to call the serviceman as they have a tendency to decide it’s the customer’s fault for doing daft things with it, such as erm, wasing dishes… and charging huge amounts for attending to in-guarantee machines.

    Maybe I need to seek out this elusive screw…

    Reply
  7. Z

    I’d tried the dishwasher cleanser stuff, that you put in an empty machine and ran it on a hot wash. The interior was very clean but it didn’t solve the problem.

    Yes, it does have a 5 year guarantee, BW, but if it turns out not to be a fault then the call-out isn’t covered. Actually, I shortened the post because it was far too detailed and you’d have all switched on to something more interesting – in fact, I then couldn’t get the cover off, it evidently wasn’t the model where you were supposed to be able to remove it. But in delving about, I realised there were drainage channels that had a lot of limescale in. So I dug it out with a screwdriver, then rinsed and mopped out several times, then poured in some industrial strength limescale remover and rinsed some more. It’s done the job.

    Reply

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