Christopher Mele

Circa 2012, my wife desperately wanted one of those fancy dishwashers with two pull-out drawers. The problem: they were insanely expensive. Then I found one on Craigslist for $600. I bought it, installed it, and for about a year my wife was thrilled. Then it started leaking. Naturally, I downloaded the service manual. That was when I discovered this dishwasher was approximately 40 times more complicated than any machine designed to wash plates had a right to be. So we called an authorized service technician. When he arrived, he spent 15 minutes explaining all the specialized training he had received, including multiple trips to Europe. Very impressive. Then he ordered parts. The parts took three months to arrive. Once they arrived, he told us it would be another three months before he could install them. I suggested, very reasonably, that perhaps I could fix it myself. My wife said absolutely not. We could not afford to replace the dishwasher if I destroyed it, she explained, and unlike the technician, I had been to Europe exactly zero times for specialized dishwasher training. Fast-forward a month. My wife leaves town. It’s just me and my young son. “You think we should try fixing the dishwasher?” He stares at me. “Mom said not to.” “I know.” “She specifically said you should not touch it.” “I know.” “And she said it because you break things.” “I do not break things.” He lists off all the full contents of my “to do” bins of broken stuff like he’s the NYPD sergeant In charge of the evidence locker. I take the dishwasher apart anyway. Then, naturally, a ship crashes somewhere. I run @gCaptain, so suddenly every television network, newspaper, and radio station on Earth is calling for interviews. The dishwasher sits in pieces. Days go by. My son checks on it periodically, not to help, he just walks into the kitchen every couple of hours, points to all the parts on the counter and slaps his face like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone: “Dad, Mom comes home in four days.” “I know.” “Three days.” “I KNOW.” By Saturday he has become a human countdown clock. He walks into the kitchen, surveys several hundred dishwasher parts spread across the floor, and quietly says: “We’re dead.” He explains all the ways people were killed by torture in medieval times. Really gruesome stuff. Sunday arrives. My wife is coming home that night. I enter full-blown WE HAVE TO FINISH THIS BEFORE MOM GETS HOME mode. My son has abandoned hope of stopping me and instead predicts my punishment. “Maybe she’ll just yell.” A few minutes later: “No. She’s definitely going to kill you.” Then: “Can I have your stuff when you die?” Thirty minutes before she walks through the door, I install the last part. The dishwasher works. My son and I stand there listening to it run like engineers at Mission Control. “We did it.” He immediately corrects me: “I had NOTHING to do with this” The kid had already prepared his alibi. My wife comes home. She’s happy to see us. My son hugs her and immediately disappears upstairs, having decided this was now between the defendant and the prosecution. I proudly announce: “I fixed the dishwasher.” Her expression changes instantly. “There is NO F’N WAY you put all those parts back together correctly. It’s 💯 going to break again.” Then comes the kill shot: “You think you’re an expert. YOU ARE NOT AN EXPERT.” She storms out. From upstairs, my son yells: “I TOLD HIM!” Traitor. Defeated, I make coffee and sit down with the Sunday paper. On the front page is a story about the ship accident. The article says: “According to top maritime expert Captain John Konrad…” A few minutes later my wife walks back into the room, still annoyed. I hand her the paper. “You’re right, hon. I am not a dishwasher expert. But according to the newspaper of record, I am an expert.” 😜 The dishwasher lasted another two years. Then it broke again. I threw the F’n thing out & bought a Maytag. 😂