Present Perfect

Our dishwasher is one we bought in Gent back when
four guys were living in a big house. We got it from a couple who had had it for a year, and when the house in Gent blew up, Kristien and I offered the dishwasher a ride to sunny Barcelona, which it gladly accepted.

Now, our dishwasher had the peculiar ability to leave streaks of residue on glasses in very specific locations. Over the years I've slowly uncovered more and more potential hiding places for dirt. Each time, after uncovering a new hideout, I was sure to have found every little nook and cranny, and from now on, all our glasses would end up clean. Invariably, I'd be disappointed again after a week or so when my desire to believe they were clean was overruled by reality.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to sit down and look at every square inch of the thing to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I dismantled the whole thing, ran my fingers everywhere and felt inside holes (after unplugging it from the mains, because our flat's electrical wiring is such that we regularly get little shocks from washing machines, dishwashers and computers), until I ran my finger underneath the rubber band all the way at the bottom.

Youch. I've never seen this much black sticky gunk, or smelt this foul a smell, inside any kitchen, ever. It smelt worse than the worst poop I've ever managed to produce, and I went through a whole fresh roll of paper towels before I ended up with a clean one running it under the rubber. This gunk was worse than any of the other gunk I've ever uncovered in any of the nooks inside.

Of course, this time I am again convinced I've found the last hiding place for gunk. Feel free to pop my bubble by giving me hints on where to look next...

And if your dishwasher has a rubber band, now is as good a time as any to go clean gunk from underneath it !

Our dishwasher is one we bought in Gent back when four guys were living in a big house. We got it from a couple who had had it for a...