Adulting...Still Hard After All These Years

The night before I left for Canada, my dishwasher (19 years old) announced its imminent demise by dramatically activating the ground fault circuit interrupter. BAM! A little troubleshooting revealed that it is the fuse marked with "dishwasher". I tried switching it on and BAM, I was sitting in the dark again. The cold rinse cycle still worked and so I managed to get the water pumped off at least. Just in case, I deactivated that part of the fuse box before leaving for the airport.

When I came back,  I had a busy week with minimal time at home and accordingly did not need a lot of tableware. On Saturday, I tried my luck again and was met with the same dramatic show of instant darkness 10 minutes into the washing cycle. A little googling revealed that this is typical of dishwashers where the heating element is broken. Mehp. Not so great timing when you have dinner guests, but worse things can happen.

First moment of mild panic along the lines of "OMFG, how do I get this inbuilt beast out and how do I disconnect it?!". Then I found out you can pay a flatrate to have the old dishwasher removed and taken away for recycling as well as connected the new one. Yay.

Next moment of mild panic (or maybe not quite as mild anymore) when I took out my measuring tape and questioned that the new slimline dishwashers were quite the same size as mine, as in: "I think mine is extra slim". A little chat to a representative of the rare breed of "available household appliances sales person" convinced me the that a few millimetres don't matter and they are all standardised. As I did not quite believe him, I measured the solitary dishwasher they had displayed in the store, just to be sure.

Next moment of panic in the checkout process of the online store when I realised I could not specify a certain date (or at least a preference for one) when I would like to have my order delivered and installed. Just a rather vague time window. A call to the shop further confused me (shipping and installation is done by a third party vendor). I was torn between going for a model available in "1-3 working days" or another one "6-9 working days". What if this is just a random number and the delivery guys end up calling me while I'm in Hong Kong?! I eventually bit the bullet and ordered the "1-3 days" version. Fingers crossed! Sometimes it feels unfair to a) not have some competent adults making these decisions for you and b) not live in a nice commune with 3 people who work from home, or are retired already and have nothing better to do than to wait at home for deliveries and plumbers that announce their arrival "between 8:00 and 13:00". 

Plus, why don't dishwashers live eternally in the first place!