Wednesday, July 31, 2013

HOW MUCH HAS TO GO RIGHT FOR SOMETHING TO GO WRONG?


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:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Father; that was exactly what I needed to hear, today.

Anonymous said...

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

Pat said...

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.

Unknown said...

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.