My new kitchen helpers and The Dishwasher Saga

I did something crazy this week. Really, really wild (for me, that is). When I bought a new dishpan and a new dish drainer, I got them both in red. That's right, red. Not white "because it will go with everything" or black for a similar reason, but red, just because it was available and I wanted it. So there.

And now, the reason for the new red things, which may also be summed up as the Dishwasher Saga. It all started way back when when we moved into our current abode, which at the time had no dishwasher. However, some of our neighbors had roll-away dishwashers, and within a month or two of our being here one of our neighbors had found a homeless one and offered it to us. The handle had broken, but my innovative husband fixed it with a padlock, some string, and a screwdriver. The machine seemed to run all right otherwise, and so we used it for quite some time (after we found the proper sink adapter for it from the hardware store). And then it wouldn't work for awhile: dishes would come out still needing to be washed. So, we'd clean out the dishwasher extra well, running cleaners through it, etc. We'd change dish soaps, change the temperature on our hot water heater, and whatever else we could think of, and it would work again for awhile.

Lately, though, the dishwasher has been on strike. Despite a VERY deep cleaning and another dish soap switch, several dishes per load continued to come out looking like they hadn't been washed at all. There's nothing more frustrating to someone who has trouble keeping up with housework in the first place than to have the work one actually does (loading and running the dishwasher) be pointless. Why have a dishwasher at all if the dishes have to be hand washed before or after the machine gets them to make them clean? And so, we got ourselves a new dish wand, and of course my red helpers, and guess what? When I wash a dish, it's actually clean and just needs to drip dry a little before I can put it away and be done. As the famous Staples button would say, "That was easy!"

Never thought I'd be so happy about hand washing dishes, but there it is. Thank you, my new little red friends.