Who needs a repairman?

My dishwasher kept making more and more noise a couple of weeks ago and last week it groaned so loudly that I had to see what was wrong.

Actually, I asked Himself to see if he could figure things out and he took a hands-off approach.  You see, he's gotten to know me quite well over the past 28 years.  He understands that if he promises to do the job he'll feel pressured to get it done even when he's dog tired from work.  (Me nag??  Never!)  He also knows that I'm mechanically minded enough to take something apart, see what doesn't work, fix it, and put it back together.  He's also aware that I hate leaving a job in pieces and will do whatever to finish it.  Plus, my appreciation of the convenience of a non-human dishwasher is often and emphatically made known to all and sundry.

So Himself knew it'd get fixed more quickly if he left it to me.  Himself was right.

A couple of hours more or less at the computer produced an exploded diagram of my model dishwasher, a site where I could order parts with pictures to identify them, and a forum of what others had found and done when their dishwashers started sounding like balky teenagers.  Six trips to Mike's toolbox finally produced the right size socket wrench and torx driver and I took it apart.  Sure enough, the upper pump was broken and one of the plastic pieces was being ground up so I ordered a new pump and two gaskets.  They came yesterday afternoon and I put everything back together today.  It works just fine.

$35 and a few hours of my time is a far better deal that calling a repairman.  Plus, he didn't see the two pistachio shells, two screws, one rivet, and what looked like two sewing pins in the bottom of the dishwasher.  (They'd been down there so long they were pretty rusted out and I only spent the two seconds from the washer to the garbage trying to identify them)  I know one screw must have come from the upper pump when it came apart and I can see how a couple of pistachio shell halves might have gotten past me but the other screw?  And the rivet??  And how did the sewing pins thingies get past me???

I'm kinda pleased with myself.