The dishwasher in the rectory broke down. Again.
Of course it was after one of those times when we didn’t start it up
because we thought we could squeezes just a few more dishes in. “There’s always room for more.” So she was packed to the gills and then . . .
nothing.
I put signs all around the kitchen, “The dishwasher is
broken! If you use it, you must wash it by hand.” The repair
man came out today and said the computer board would need replaced and that the
part and labor would be $400! The
machine is only a couple of years old and we just replaced this very same part
a year ago so $400 seems a bit excessive, considering these two repairs would
be way more than we paid for the thing in the first place. So we are getting a new one – and not the
same brand.
Now, I think it would be understandable if one were upset at
this debacle. Cheap equipment is wasting
our time and resources. But on the other
hand, how many things had to right to face this problem? We had food.
We had (nice) plates and service wear on which to eat the food that
needed cleaning. We (had) a
dishwasher. We have clean water. We have soap.
We have safe and reliable electricity.
We have a kitchen. We live in a
place where a repair man could come out within a day. We are able bodied enough that we can wash
dishes by hand and had the materials on hand to do it. And we have the joy to put up with it.
A person about whom I’ve written here before was in a
terrible car accident last week. She was
at Mass this week saying that, although two cars were totaled and she had a
concussion and broken rib, she and the kids walked away. It was going to be a hardship getting a new
car but they had a lot about which to be thankful so she chose to be grateful
instead of angry.
When something goes wrong, there is so much that has to go
right for there to be something that we can complain about. We have a choice. Every event can be the end of the world or an
opportunity. One of the opportunities is
to realize how much of life is good in order to have the problem we face even
be able to be a problem at all.
4 comments:
Thank you, Father; that was exactly what I needed to hear, today.
I have a Maytag dishwasher . . . have had it for more years than I can remember . . . it has performed well. i have never had to have it fixed. GET ONE . . . IT'S NOT CHEAP'
rmk
Maytag is not what it used to be. I had a Maytag dishwasher that I tried to get fixed. The service was absolutely terrible. We junked it.
A few years ago we bought a Maytag washer. It's not as good -- by far -- as my son's and my sister's washers, which are over 20 years old.
First, thank you for reminding us to focus on the positives when presented with a negative. Second, do buy the extended warranty! We just had an $800 dryer die and the part would have been nearly $400...after only 3 years! The service tech told me that, whereas extended warranties were a waste of money many years ago, they are well worth it nowadays because everything is electronic and short-lived. At $30 per year, I agreed and purchased one for the new dryer.
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