Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Breaking news: threatening dishwashers doesn't fix them after all

Last month I reported that I had discovered the secret to repairing household items (and dishwashers in particular): threaten them with replacement.

Sadly, the motor in our dishwasher once again froze up two weeks ago. My SO did the honors of preparing to order a replacement motor, but even after waiting a few minutes (and loudly announcing the impending order), the dishwasher did not start working. So, we went ahead and ordered the motor, which, combined with a healthy dose of WD-40, was successful in making the dishwasher function (albeit very noisily). At the time we concluded that our theory was still correct, but that we needed to escalate the threat.

On the same day that our new motor arrived, the dishwasher once again stopped working. Since we had the new motor, we placed the motor right next to the dishwasher, figuring that it would be the ultimate threat and shock it into functioning again. Unfortunately, the technique did not work.

So, tonight I got to replace our dishwasher's motor. It is now (apparently) working well, and, as a bonus, is extremely quiet once again. However, I'd be happy if I never saw the underside of a dishwasher again.

And, based on the above data, I have formulated a new hypothesis about the motivations of the dishwasher motor: the motor knew it was dying all along, but was bravely hanging on until it knew that we could replace it. I never knew a machine could have such honor and nobility.

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