We had a Maytag dishwasher. Out of five dishwashers in 26 years of marriage, it was by far the best one we’d ever had–till we had a houseful of people (of course) keeping it going constantly in December. We replaced the hose; then it started smoking of burning rubber. Come to find out (thank you MSNBC!) that it was under recall, that Maytag would give you $75 toward a new one, and finding the motor fried at this point, we gave up and ordered one a month ago.
And waited. And waited. It seems there were a lot of people who suddenly wanted to replace their nine-year-old dishwashers too (ya think? After the part under recall set off housefires? And being offered that much to replace something that’s both that old and has worked so well in the past?)
Yesterday, oh, goodness, at last Home Despot finally delivered. Last night my husband and son worked till all odd hours getting that thing in, and then today my sweetie brought me locally-grown, bug-free, organic roses to top it off. No high-dose pesticides poisoning workers in Columbia. We’re lucky; there’s a small grower’s co-op just a few miles from here.
They say the way not to be romantic is to buy your wife an appliance. They also say no man was ever shot doing the dishes. Me, I’d say that the effort my sweetie put in to make my life far easier (grumbling for hours over the hieroglyphic-only instructions geared at the non-English-speaking) is just incredibly lovely, and he could have skipped the flowers altogether. He tells me that whether I like roses or prefer amaryllises is irrelevant, he has to teach his sons how to treat their future wives. Roses it is. And yes, he’d checked the undersides of the leaves to make sure no little oval carpet beetle eggs or bugs lurked there to come infest my stash. This man of mine: he’s a keeper.
Ditch the dishtowel and raise the flowers high: Happy Valentine’s, everyone!