Striking Fear In My Heart

Background:
Nearly 7 months ago the two older girls were frolicking around in the kitchen. Not unusually, one of them lost their balance and fell on the open dishwasher door.
When Mommo and Daddo returned home and found that the dishwasher door now opened far enough to almost hit the floor, they were not pleased.
The next day when the dishwasher was run, water was found seeping out from under it.
More displeasure abounded.
I did a cursory check, but didn't find the root cause.

This was then followed by 7 months of not using the dishwasher. (Mommo had had this idea--later found to be a 'moon-bat crazy idea'-- that this would be a good opportunity to give our kids more hands-on contact with work. Naturally, I agreed with her, and forgot about the dishwasher.)

However, a couple weeks ago Cindy hinted that she wanted to dishwasher back in operation.

She hinted strongly that she would be calling a repairman sometime after Christmas.

While I was still hyperventilating, I managed to pencil in a more comprehensive troubleshooting regimen on my to-do list.

Its turn came up on Christmas Day at about 1 PM. I had pulled out the dishwasher and was running it to see if I could find the source of the leak. (I was guessing it was a cracked frame).

Five minutes after it was started, as I lay on the floor looking for leaks with my flashlight, I got sprayed in the face. There was a tube running along the side of the unit, and I saw that it had been chafed by the hinge and had developed a hole.

5 minutes after that, Plumber's Epoxy (no man's toolkit is complete without it!) and electrician's tape took care of the hole, and then some duct tape was used to keep the tube away from the hinge hardware!

Merry Christmas Cindy! I was so happy to spend five minutes fixing a 7-month-old problem!
(And isn't it a much better gift than a dumb ol' diamond or solid gold gew-gaw?)