So I’m reading Heather B.’s dooce.com today and see that she has bought her first ever box of Cascade for her new dishwasher. I share in that joy as yesterday I bought, for the first time in my life, dishwasher, um, washer stuff. I didn’t get Cascade, but a box of nifty little three-layer tablets that have a magic ball of some sort in the center. I brought them home, loaded up the dishwasher, pressed the bottons to select my options and… nothing. “Is there an ‘On’ button that I’m missing?” I thought to myself. I looked all over the front of the machine and I could find nothing that resembled a “On” or “Start” button. I tried to look in the back, as it could possibly not be plugged in. The ‘fridge wasn’t so this is a valid theory. I soon discover that the dishwasher is on wheels and can be moved freely about the kitchen. This, of course, means that it’s not attached to the wall via a power cord or anything, confirming my theory that it was, indeed, unplugged. I locate the power cord all nicely coiled up in a compartment in the back, right next to the tube where you plug the water supply into, also not plugged in. I survey the area where the dishwasher was. There is no piping or anything for water. This is very very strange. “Is there a hook-up in the closet by where the dishwasher was?” “No.” “Dammit.” I ended up leaving a message for Bud, the caretaker, as to why I was taunted with a dishwasher when there is no place to actually plug it in and use it, and I washed my dishes in the sink feeling like I’m back in the stone-age.