Isn’t that how so many things start?

Something so small and insignificant leads to something big.

So, this morning, I was unloading the dishwasher and when I was 3/4 of the way through, I noticed something rather peculiar in the bottom of the dishwasher.  Please don’t be a roach, please don’t be a roach, please don’t be a roach, I thought.  Upon closer inspection, it was, of course, a roach.  Dead, thankfully.  However, it meant that all the dishes that I just put up had dead cockroach molecules all over them.  Being slightly perturbed (and a lot grossed out), I went outside to tell Jason that we were just going to have to take apart the dishwasher drain thing to get the roach out.  Sighing heavily, he drug out a pair of needlenose pliers and a ratchet.

Naturally, the roach was stuck in the drain apparatus, and with no other way to fully remove the thing, we had to completely disassemble the drain thingy/filter for the dishwasher.  As it turns out, the roach wasn’t the worst thing about the whole incident. The drain and filter/membrane was chock full of total grossness.  I’m talking about food bits, some kind of grey sludge, and something black all caught up in the membrane.  Jason pointed out that we’ve been eating off of dishes that have been ‘cleaned’ with water that goes right through all of this sludge (AKA ‘toxic waste’).

We looked at one another and said, “OUT!”.  So today, the dishwasher was ripped out, with absolutely no plan to replace it.  See, there is no way to pop out the drain/recirculating water apparatus to clean it.  So, all of that clean water is pumped back through that hideous filter thing and sprayed all over your dishes.  Ew.  I wonder if most dishwashers aren’t the same?  So, back to yellow gloves and a drying rack for me.  Yet again we’re ditching a ‘modern convenience’.

Plus, when we ripped out the thing, there were 2 fat cockroaches sitting on the back of the tub, along with a lot of roach poo.  Yeah, that’s what I want in my kitchen!  A cockroach haven.

The good news is that (besides having roach-free dishes) we are going to put some nice shelves back in there to hold more of my baking (crap) stuff.  So, I guess I owe some thanks to that bold cockroach who gave up its life to get stuck in my drain!