Standing on principle apparently means standing and hand washing dishes for four weeks. Remember that broken dishwasher? Well, I decided that we shouldn’t have to pay for the parts or labor to get it fixed. Finding the problem was not much of a problem, since it became clear that the control board had caught on fire. Turns out that evidence of flame is easy to spot after the panel was removed from the machine. Travis’ vote was to purchase a new board for $117 and put it in the machine…DONE! My vote was that Frigidaire should replace the part. There was also that nagging reminder in the back of my head that perhaps we should try to find out WHY the panel caught fire. I guess I was actually willing to live with that, because I would have been happy with having the new part.

This process of standing on principle started with an email to Frigidaire. Easy enough! They promised to get back to me in 48 hours. But then they didn’t get back to me in 48 hours. The next process of principle is calling them. This part is always tricky. See, after I call and answer the 50 questions on their automated answering system, they know that I want something for nothing. That’s what those questions are designed to weed out, right? Sometimes a person gets mysteriously disconnected at this point, but I didn’t. I got sent to hold hell. This is where I end up getting transferred to the gal who just left for lunch break. And she is taking an extra-long lunch so she can get her taxes done and have her dog groomed. I have a trick for this though. I put the phone on speaker and carry it around with me as I go about my day. I just have to remember to keep an eye on the battery level, and make sure I don’t bump something and inadvertently disconnect myself, giving them an excuse to put me on hold with the next guy that just went on lunch break. All the while, there is some message droning on about long hold times, and perhaps trying to call the next day. NO WAY! I’m getting an answer today Ms. Voice on the recording! I’ll show you. It’s the principle. And you can’t drive me insane, because that ship has sailed, and I’m on the steering committee.

I finally get an actual human on the line, but it’s the wrong human. This human doesn’t handle the “something for nothing and I don’t have my receipt” calls. She needs to transfer me to a different department that likely just went to lunch as a department for the manager’s birthday. It’s my lucky day. Eventually, after another long hold, I get a person that seems to want to listen to my “control panel on fire” story. She will even order me the part…FREE! I later learned that the serial number tells those in the know exactly the week and year the machine was manufactured, so she knew I wasn’t lying about the purchase date, because it was a couple weeks after the manufacture date. So she knew she should cover the part. Then she starts talking about having someone do the work. As in not Travis, but someone that is actually certified to work on dishwashers. Not an OB/GYN that usually works on a completely different set of machinery. Okay, seems reasonable. Who pays for that? I do? Oh, no, no, no! You misunderstand my principle. In my principle, I don’t pay for anything. And how much would that fix cost anyway? She says $95. I thanked her for her help (she was really nice) and asked if I could speak to someone who could approve the whole fix, because I really felt like they should cover it, and be thankful that the thing didn’t burn down my house. And then, she put me on hold. This hold was the shortest at 15 minutes, so I was grateful for that. And when she came back (it was still the nice lady), she said that Frigidaire will also pay the cost of the repair. Score!

So, I set up a date about a week out with the repair company, because that’s when they had time and expected to have the part. Then I host bunco. Seriously, when you are hand washing dishes, don’t host anything! In general, I refuse to dry dishes, because the air does such a nice job of it, why should I bother? But, I find that I lose a lot of counter space for drying dishes after, say, bunco, or making a dinner, or letting the dishes pile up all day. And I like to soak stuff, so my sink was constantly filled with water, which gets really nasty, and ended up staining the sink. Still can’t get it off. Who thought white was a good color for a kitchen sink anyway? And of course, during this time, the drain to the sink developed a leak, so we had water under the sink. Fortunately, we were alerted to this by an alarm we put under the sink the last time we had a leak. And we have only lived here two years. And Tessa and I couldn’t figure out where the alarm was coming from for a while. But eventually we found it. And Travis fixed it. But I made him wait until after bunco, because everyone knows that a 10 minute Haldeman job isn’t usually 10 minutes, and a bucket would do just fine under there during the bunco clean up. And since I made him wait to fix it, it was a 10 minute job. Figures.

So, eventually the big day came for the fix! I was so excited. The repair guy was on time!! He came in and looked at the dishwasher, and found that the cause was a faulty seal around the control panel. He’s been doing that job for 50 years (JJ said he was 70, but looked 50), and he’s only seen this problem three times. My lucky day! And he will need more parts. Which means, I don’t get my dishwasher back. And since this isn’t a common problem, the parts will probably take a while.

So, that is how my dishwasher repair took four weeks. And I’m a little embarrassed by how excited I was when JJ, the repair guy, showed up the second time. I was like a kid in front of the ice-cream truck, all jittery, jumpy, and awkward. He went with it. He told me he had that effect on both men and women. Everyone loves to see the appliance repair guy.

There’s a couple things you should know about this principle thing. First, if it’s your principle, support from co-inhabitants will wane. I found that I was the most affected by my idea of principle, because the kids are so busy with after school activities and homework, they don’t have time for washing dishes, except on weekends. I did utilize them on weekends. And Travis, while helpful, kept reminding me that it could have already been fixed if I had let him fix it. I tried to point out that we could also burn down the house, but he would hear none of it, since it didn’t burn down the house the first time. And so I washed dishes, and utilized my dishwasher stacking skills to stack them in great drying towers all around the kitchen. It was a bit of a hazard, but we managed with only one dish tumble, and little breakage. The second thing I learned was that my own support for principle waned. I was so tired of the dishwashing, and scummy sink filled with rancid soaking water, and leaning towers of dishes, that I was regretting my own principle. Of course, I couldn’t share that with the family…well, not until after the thing was fixed, which happened Monday. So, pick your principle well, and be prepared for the result. It’s all good now for us. And maybe we won’t inadvertently burn the house down. Good times!