Adventures in Dish-washing

I'm working on several blog posts, but this one just won't wait.


All this week, I've been putting off getting more of the dish-washing tablets I use for the dishwasher because it rained most of the week and I just hate going to the store. I've also been involved in sorting through and processing a couple thousand family photos for multimedia archiving and I've been so absorbed in both that and some software beta testing for work that leaving the house just wasn't on the agenda if avoidable.


As the dishwasher has gotten increasingly more full throughout the week, I finally had to break down and go to the store. I chose a certain warehouse club store that is owned by a company that rhymes with Gall-Fart, (Sam's) because I had hoped to get a large container that would last the rest of the year and save me future interruptions in my more important endeavors.


I wandered around forever, trying to find the section that would have the needed item. Of course, these stores don't have the aisles labeled well enough to help anyone find much of anything. Turns out, if you want dish-washing detergent, you'll need to go to the laundry detergent aisle, but you'll have a difficult time finding the dish detergent, because it's right in the middle of unrelated items and it's a very small section. Complicating things further was the carnival-like gathering of customers around a man demonstrating some infomercial-like knives right near the section I needed to get to, and the prospect of wading through that crowd had me hoping that wouldn't be where I had to go.


Of course, that *was* where I needed to go, and after doing some math on my iPhone calculator to determine if this was a good price (sometimes these places are more expensive per unit than if you buy a small quantity at a convenience store - what a racket) I made note of the price, put my selection in the cart, and trekked across the warehouse to get in line at the cashier area.


It appeared that they were changing cashiers, but I'd hoped it wouldn't take long, because moving to another line inevitably means there will be some other time-consuming delay in the new line, so I figured I'd wait it out.


Several other people in line both in front of and behind me were commenting that it seemed as though the three employees at the cash register were doing more chatting and socializing than working (why does it take THREE employees to change cashier drawers in the first place?) and we were all getting frustrated.


Fifteen minutes later, I finally got to put my ONE item on the conveyor belt and check out. However, the item rang up about $3 higher than what the sign said.


Another 10-15 minutes later, (those behind me had long since either left without purchasing their items or moved to another line), a manager shows up and finally figures out how to adjust the price after someone moseys over to the part of the warehouse with the dish detergent and verifies that they do, indeed, have a different price on the sign than what rang up on their register.


It takes another five minutes to stand in line at the exit and wait for the "receipt checker" to make sure no one has managed to sneak out a huge jar of mayonnaise without paying for it.


I was thoroughly disgusted with the entire experience, more-so because I had only needed one item (even if it was to last the rest of the year). I vowed to never go back to that store again, or any of that chain of stores at all unless it is to get more of the monstrous-sized rawhide bones which each take Booger about 45 minutes to consume (it would take normal dogs about a day). They've got the only thing like them anywhere in town, and they are an excellent value if you ignore how much frustration you go through trying to get them.


I had numerous other errands to run and went to see a movie at the $2 theater with the roommate before finally returning home.


(Sidenote: as I type this, I see to the right side of the screen images of dish-washer detergent tablets - apparently this is Google's way of letting me know they know exactly what I'm blogging about... sort of. And oh - this is hilarious - there's an ad that says "Is there a Fed in your kitchen?" If there is, I pity the fool. And don't even get me started on the topic of the dish detergent smuggling that goes on between Canada to the U.S. now that our government is telling us what kind of dish detergent we are and are not allowed to have, all in the name of "saving the planet". Yeah, right. Nuclear "nucular" meltdown isn't NEARLY the same threat as my FUCKING PHOSPHATE-FILLED DISH DETERGENT.) SERIOUSLY!!!???


So, I get home, and my roommate, who has acted like an adolescent child all day (and not in a good way) has me totally annoyed. I decide to focus on getting chores done (even though it is after midnight) and begin loading the dishwasher.


Suddenly, the dishwasher bottom drawer goes FLYING from the kitchen to the living room, dishes scattering all over the place along the way. The roommate thought *I* did it, and I said "Are you crazy? I'm annoyed, but I'm not THAT mad!"


I had been running water in the sink and somehow missed the whole thing (which must have taken only a split second to occur) even though it happened right next to where I was standing. I stood puzzled for a moment, trying to figure out what kind of bizarre nuclear explosion had taken place in the dishwasher for this to happen. As I surveyed the silverware scattered across the living room, dining area, and kitchen I was baffled untiil I spotted Booger's tags stuck in the side of the bottom dishwasher drawer, now sitting among the carnage on the living room floor.


Turns out, Booger was sniffing the dirty dishes as I was putting them in the bottom drawer, as he often does, and had gotten his tags caught. When he yanked away and ran to the living room, he took half the dishwasher with him.


Once I got the dog tags free and the dishes picked up and the drawer loaded back into the dishwasher, it was time to get Booger's dog tag holder back on his collar with a pair of pliers. Any time you do anything with the collar or any part thereof on this dog, it's a huge ordeal, because his puppy-ness does not allow him to be still when he's in "play" mode for longer than a few seconds, and he loves to play "let's be still only long enough for you to *think* I'm going to let you finish what you're doing".


Finally, after half an hour of dog wrestling, Booger had his bling back on and I found myself covered in fur and doggie slobbers. It must have worn him out as much as me, because now Booger is snoring loudly enough to drown out the sound of the dishwasher and make the walls vibrate as I blog.


So yeah, that was my day. How was yours?


A.