The return of dishpan hands

Thumbo update - G went to the doctor on Tuesday, where they poked a hole in his nail with a needle. That sounds bad enough, but then the doctor squeezed and squeezed to make blood come out of the hole. After squeezing his enormously swollen, sore digit for what G described as an eternity (G was starting to feel faint), the doctor announced, "There, that should feel a lot better." G felt little relief. They did an x-ray to make sure it wasn't broken, and it wasn't. Just more painful than the doctor gave it credit for, I guess.

In other news, you may recall that we redid our kitchen, including new granite countertops. There was a slight problem with the installation on one side of the sink, and we fought with the installation company for a few months before they just stopped calling us back. We recently took up the matter with Home Depot, where we had purchased the countertops. They have been very helpful in getting the installer to contact us again.

So earlier this week, men came and removed the problem part of the countertop. It takes us back to the days (many days) before we had the countertops installed. I think we've decided that the countertop is not just a convenience item.

But that's not the story I'm trying to tell you. Here it comes.

The dishwasher was full of clean dishes when they removed the countertop, so when I got home that evening, I began to unload it. I quickly remembered that without the countertop, the dishwasher is very front-heavy. When the door is opened, it becomes even more unbalanced, and the racks slide out.

So I was being very careful. I successfully unloaded the bottom rack and started on the top rack. I grabbed a couple of glasses, slid the rack back in, made sure the dishwasher was stable, and walked over to the cup cabinet. As I reached up to put the glasses away, I heard a huge crash.

You guessed it - the dishwasher had fallen on its face, still half full of dishes. G was in the laundry room, which is off the kitchen, and the fallen dishwasher somewhat impeded his rushing to the scene at the sound of the crash and my shriek.

We closed the dishwasher door, pushed it upright, and then inspected the damage. Miraculously, no dishes were broken.

Needless to say, I hand-washed the dirty dishes that night.