My wife and I had a very happy marriage until about last Thursday. I of course don’t mean those sickeningly-sweet Hallmark movie ideas of a “happy marriage,” where neither party has had even a bad hair day, let alone enough nighttime gas to blow the hair off a gerbil. I mean the real life “happy marriage,” where we have a generally positive word association with each other. If we filled out a survey asking us how likely we would be to choose our marriage again or recommend it to a friend, we’d choose “mostly agree.” That sort of thing.
So yes, my wife and I had the normal bumps and scrapes that any pairing has, but despite these I would still maintain our marriage was a happy one. Until it was eviscerated, suddenly and ruthlessly, by none other than the Bosch 300 Series Front Control Smart Compatible (Stainless Steel) with Third Rack℠ dishwasher.
I suddenly realized I had married a sociopath, who didn’t even care if the poor dishwasher had to grunt and strain under the load of hardened, unrinsed batter-encrusted mixing bowls or a rack of jelly spoons. It was quite the shock, of course, and I resisted believing it at first. But soon the evidence piled up and I had no choice but to face the horror that Ted Bundy had become the mother of my children.
The change came on rather suddenly. One day, I was pulling out of a Home Depot parking next to a sweet, smiling homemaker excited at the prospect of less chores. And the next night, she had transformed into a maniacal sadist hellbent on mechanical suffering. She now seems to take an almost fiendish delight in witnessing the poor, poor (or rather quite expensive) machine scream in agony as she nearly beats it to death every week, even in front of its newly born (and mostly clean) silverware babies. “Watch this,” she said once, “I bet I can put this cast iron wok that I used to melt candle stubs in there without even scraping it, and the ‘SpeedPerfect™’ cycle will STILL get it good!” And then, I swear, I almost saw a flicker of life animate deep within her cavernous eyes.
So yes, it was quite the shock for me. But it was equally revealing for my wife, who never realized she married a complete moron.
She rarely says so—but sometimes, I can see a resolute pity flash on top of her predatory grimace whenever she sees me try to fit bowls in the RackMatic™ third rack (which was made specifically for silverware and other cooking utensils), or load the glasses mouth up so that scummy water collects in them at the end of the cycle. Her look softens and almost turns sad. For a second, it looks as if she is experiencing pain (instead of inflicting it, as is now customary) at the sudden awareness that the rest of her life will be consumed with caretaking for a doddering imbecile. Though I should point out that our new dishwasher detergent looks an awful lot like talcum powder, and it honestly could have happened to anyone.
So, our Bosch 300 Series Front Control Smart Compatible (Stainless Steel) with Third Rack℠ dishwasher has transformed our marriage from a relationship of mutual tenderness and respect into two completely opposite and certifiably-insane individuals forced to live together for economic reasons, since (as noted) the dishwasher was quite expensive. We have become, to our mutual horror, boomers.
A savvier consumer might have seen this coming. But it caught me off guard, and I can’t help but feel kind of cheated by the Bosch salesman. He claimed that the Bosch 300 Series Front Control Smart Compatible (Stainless Steel) with Third Rack℠ dishwasher would do a week’s worth of dishes at only 46 decibels of noise. We found this to be mostly true, but sometimes spiking into the 300 dBs depending on how much one of us has had to drink. He claimed it would install in as little as 30 minutes, but didn’t warn us that this only applies if you buy their Premium Install Service, and that it’s especially weighted to throw out your back and teach your son lots of fun new words if you dare to install it yourself. And though he did give us a pamphlet which warned “THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN FLAGGED BY THE FDA AS CONTAINING CHEMICALS HAZARDOUS TO MARITAL PEACE,” it was in the fine print we never bothered to read.
Of course, we could get rid of the dishwasher. I’d still be making payments until I’m 80, but there’s nothing in the fine print of our financing agreement (I checked this time) that says I can’t pay to ruin the junkyard guy’s marriage instead of my own. But getting rid of it completely is just too hard.
Sometimes I want to, of course. By most metrics our life was better without it. Sure, before the Bosch 300 Series Front Control Smart Compatible (Stainless Steel) with Third Rack dishwasher, we each spent about 3-4 hours a day doing dishes. But still, it was a happy 3-4 hours, largely because we never saw each other.
But I can never bring myself to uninstall it. I’ll reach for the screwdriver to dismantle the Genuine OEM Mounting Brackets. But then I think of the sleek design of the fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel exterior; or the raw power of the PrecisionWash®️ technology with multiple rotating spray arms that target every item, every wash; or the efficiency of the PureDry™ system that sanitized while it dries. But I mostly think of how much I paid for it. And then I put the screwdriver away, and return to loading it with bowls right-side-up.
So, our marriage will stay unhappy, and the dishwasher will remain for now. But maybe we’ll just use it as a drying rack, or as somewhere to store our important documents, until it finally loses its warranty and explodes in a puddle of water damage.
But with AquaStop 24/7 Leak Protection®, that may be a while.
