A Happily Ever After Homeowner Tale (Almost)

Once upon a time not that long ago in a land not that far away a damsel in distress wept over the state of her dishes.

"Somebody please help!" she cried. "The glasses are so cloudy you can't even see what's in them, the bowls are so stained no one can tell what color they are, and the silverware are so nasty no one wants to dine with us!"

Her knight in shining armor was not much help. Had the dishwasher been broken because of a fatal design flaw, he could have sued the pants off the manufacturer. But as a knight who wasn't all that handy around the house, his options for assisting his dear damsel were limited.

So he tried to blame it on her Seventh Generation dish detergent ("it's because of that hippie detergent you use," he said). When his "heavy duty" dish detergent failed to produce any better results, he threw his hands in the air with disgust and said, "It's a piece of [expletive here]. We're going to have to buy a new one."

As distraught as the damsel was at the thought, she nodded in agreement and began looking for dishwasher sales (because she wasn't going to buy a dishwasher until she could find a reasonably priced, stainless-steel, Energy Star model—even damsels in distress can be finicky sometimes).

Alas, weeks went by and she still hadn't found the deal she was looking for. They dealt as best they could with the horrible state of their dishes (after the dishware succumbed to the atrocity of the wash cycle, even hand-washing wouldn't help get rid of the aftermath, so they kept using the dishwasher despite its ineffectiveness).

And then disaster struck.

The damsel awoke one morning to a not-so-good sound from the basement. She went down to investigate, armed with her trusty sidekick Butter, who would protect her should the danger involve rabbits or postmen, and discovered that the water softener wasn't working. At all. Well ... it was trying to work, but all it was doing was producing a most painful clicking and clattering sound. So the damsel did the only thing she could do. She picked up the phone and made a call.

Culligan Man to the rescue!

The handy Culligan Man, armed with his water-problem-fighting tool belt, discovered that a number of parts in the water softener needed replaced. And probably had needed replaced for months—perhaps even for as long as the damsel and her knight had lived in their little brick castle.

So the heroic Culligan Man gave the damsel a list of parts to order and, when the parts arrived, he came back to install them.

Then the water softener was working. And the damsel could go back to worrying about the dishwasher.

But wait.

What was this?

Little by little, load by load, the dishes were getting clearer. Maybe the dishwasher didn't need replaced after all. Maybe, just maybe, the water softener had been the problem all along.

A couple of weeks later, the damsel knew for sure: The dishwasher (though rather ugly) was fine. It worked wonderfully. Suddenly she could tell what color her dishes were again. The silverware actually looked silver. And their Mason jars—oh! the Mason jars!—never before had she seen glassware so shiny and clear in her own home. It was nothing short of miraculous.


Then the knight and the damsel were happy. And their bank account was happy. And their glasses sparkled like diamond rings in the cupboard. And they all lived happily ever after.

Until the next week, when the dishwasher starting leaking.

To be continued ...