Blasted!!!

On Halloween, I wanted to carve one more pumpkin for our front porch. The kids were at school and Dave was home so I grabbed a pumpkin left over from Jack's party and got ready to carve. We had a bunch of those carving kits you can get with patterns and all the tools you need. Well I knew what I wanted to carve so all I needed was the marking crayon that came in the kit. I couldn't find one anywhere. We had three during the party and I know we kept the kits pretty well accounted for so I assumed they had to be somewhere. I asked Dave if he had seen them and he said he hadn't. Oh well, no biggie. So I use a regular crayon hoping it works as well, which it does not, but I get the job done. Now I was ready to do some carving! I knew Dave had put the carving pieces and the scoopers in the dishwasher so I opened it up to get what I needed. And holy sweet savannah to my eyes what did I see? A totally GREEN dishwasher!!!! Can you figure out how???? It took me a minute, but then I realized what happened - I know where the marking crayons were - or in this case where they had melted onto everything!!! I'll spare the details of how it happened to shield my loved ones... It was actually funny for a bit, until we realized that a simple rewashing of things didn't clean it up, nor did many loads empty on hot, or using vinegar, or this or that...we tried everything. We had lost most of the kids cups, utensils, our plastic cups and bowls, and lots of gladware. It was a disaster. We had pretty much given up hope and were looking at homedepot.com for a new dishwasher, which totally sucked because we hadn't even paid off this one yet (it's only 6 months old - we decided to trade out the builder's dishwasher for one that actually cleaned our dishes and didn't sound like a jet engine in our kitchen). It was nauseating for me to even think about doing that, so I decided I wouldn't consider it until I knew I had exhausted every possible cleaning idea out there. Well we found a suggestion on some message board about this cleaner called "Bar Keepers Friend" but you can't just go to the grocery store and buy it. At least not our grocery store. But their website said Linens 'n Things sells it, among others. I immediately went in and bought two cans of this stuff, plus some dish gloves and scrub brushes. I figured I'd rather spend $30 dollars on cleaning products that might work instead of replacing a $900 dishwasher. Just a thought. I get home and I'm so anxious to see if this stuff works I barely follow the instructions. It just has to work!!! So I make my paste and start scrubbing. Immediately the cleaner starts to turn green - it's coming off!!! I continue to scrub and scrub and scrub - I went through all the cleaner I had bought and had to go get more. It didn't matter though, it was working! In the end I spent over 6 hours inside my dishwasher, but it's saved! Unfortunately a lot of it is stained green still, but the waxy film is gone and the green doesn't rub off on anything we put in it. I felt very thrifty in putting so much effort into it, because believe you me, I sooo did not want to do that much work when first thinking about our options. Most of me wanted to just say heck with it and go get a new one. But when I thought long and hard about our current financial status - not such a great idea to go into more debt just so I didn't have to use a little elbow grease! Can you say lazy!? Geesh. Obviously we made the right choice. It'll be a fun story to tell at parties and such in the future (once a certain someone can embrace the humor in his error ;-).

Below are a few pictures to elaborate the story. Unfortunately, in our panicked state we didn't think to take a complete before picture - with the overwhelming amount of green in there - dishes and all. It was quite a sight!