Plumbing disaster early this month

Earlier this month, Kris said the horrific words, "I think the dishwasher is broken." I looked into the dishwasher to see four inches of stagnant water, and thought, well, crap. I told him not to worry, though, I'd fix it. He looked at me, and shook his head, in a "I wonder how long this is going to take." sort of way.

Nearly a week and a dozen sinks worth of dishes washed later, I pulled the bucket and a screwdriver from the garage and went to work under the sink.

I have no idea what convinced me that 1. I knew what the problem was, or 2. I could fix it, but ignorance breeds confidence and, within minutes, the plumbing was disconnected under the sink. One quick, flashlight-aided look later, and I knew we weren't spending hundreds of dollars on a new dishwasher.

Turns out, when I made my most dee-lish-shush mushroom barley soup for Thanksgiving, and had dumped the old, spoiled barley down the drain (before I realized how stupid such a move would be, and threw it into the compost pile instead), I had inadvertantly clogged the incoming dishwasher line. It was packed full of barley, about eight inches worth of barley packing.

A plumber's snake, a chopstick, fifteen minutes and only one dishwasher water explosion later, and we had clear plumbing again.

Plumber Kitt to rescue. I'm liking this hands-on approach to fixing house problems.