Mooing in the Kitchen

It was early in the autumn that the dishwasher began to misbehave. Taking for ever to get through a cycle. Not getting things totally clean. Developing a hole in one of the silverware compartments. We sort of babied it along, pre-scraping more thoroughly, using the shortest cycle, and being careful with the cutlery basket. And didn't call the repair person. Alas, that was just the start of some dreaded virus that is spreading through our kitchen.

Next problem involved the disposal. It is the kind where we shove the debris down, turn on the cold water, and then hand-turn the cap to activate. Part-way through winter it developed an overly anxious syndrome of not shutting down when the cap was removed. Again, we didn't call the repair person, but learned to be careful, to wait the 7-15 seconds it would take to shut down after removing the cap.

Our appliances aren't that old. We remodeled the kitchen about ten years ago, and everything except the fridge was new at that time. Surely one can expect more than ten years from major appliances? The ceramic cooktop isn't that old -- we've already replaced it because it cracked when the cleaning lady stood on it (she is no longer our cleaning lady).

Push has come to shove, apparently. Yesterday when I got home, Joe told me not to try to use the microwave: it wasn't working at all. And he'd called the repairman. So I put the side dish in the oven and cooked the chicken on the indoor grill, and when we sat down to eat, the pasta concoction was still frozen in some places and tepid in the other, so the oven portion of the appliance is also ailing, in addition to the microwave.

Here's my moo, friends: What does one have to do to get appliances repaired? Joe phoned a repair place and instead of a real person, got an answering machine where he left a message. After three hours of no response, he called two more places and left similar messages.

It has been more than twenty-four hours now, and none of the three places has returned the call. So today he's calling two or three more, probably including the local appliance dealer whom we detest from an unpleasant experience back in the 80s (did we seem like the sort to hold a 30-year grudge?). And we'll see what happens.

I've got company coming for Sunday dinner. Just in case, I'm revising my initial menu to include London Broil on the grill, potato salad, beans in the crockpot, and mixed baby greens. Fortunately someone else is bringing the dessert.