Due to the providing of some wedding consulting services to Christopher and Danielle this week, I haven't really been out in the field; no new palaces to report on or strange meals to share. Then on Wednesday the need for dishwasher detergent came and with it, the one domestic situation I've been waiting all my life to encounter. This story definitely beats the one where I tried making gourmet pigs-in-a-blanket with chorizo and oil pooled in the bottom of the oven. The oven continued to smoke for about 6 months.
I had run out of detergent for the dishwasher, so on my trip to Emart with my new friend Heather, I tried to look for the same stuff -- normal powder dishwasher detergent. We couldn't find it so Heather suggested the liquid kind. I have never used liquid dish washing detergent in my life. As usual, the package was completely in Korean, but as always, there were helpful photos of giants limes and what appeared to smelly fish and other "situations" that the product apparently helps get rid of. I poured the liquid into the same compartment where the powder goes, set the cycle to Auto and left.
Two hours later, creeping from underneath the dishwasher and halfway through the kitchen was a giant band of soap suds. (!!!!!) Inside? Sparkling clean dishes surrounded by suds only achievable by Mr. Bubble in the bathtub. I've always wondered what to do in this situation, when giant soap bubbles are flowing out of an appliance. After a slight moment of panic, as I started to wonder if it would start seeping through the floor down to the neighbors, I took to toweling out the bubbles and scooping out the water with a mixing bowl. After removing all the dishes, I fired it up again, checking every 10 minutes or so to make sure it was rinsing away the bubbles and not making more of them. Situation rectified.
How in the world was this liquid detergent any different than the powder kind? After just assuming I put the liquid soap in the wrong compartment or too much of it, it dawned on me. It seems I missed interpreted or completely overlooked one very important part of the pictorial guide on the back of the container; that of a refill being poured into a container. It was dish soap!
Maybe it's time to sign up for Korean class...for the many practical, daily situations for which it would get used (or prevent from happening). The saving grace from this very foamy situation is that it ended up exacerbating a pre-existing, unknown plumbing problem. Thanks to the overabundance of bubbles, the problem reared it's ugly head. We now have a new pipe that connects to the dishwasher, the bubbles have disappeared, and the scent of sewer that occasionally and mysteriously used to appear is now gone.
Moral(s) of the story: Always buy the same detergent you've just run out of when you can't read the label....or learn the language the labels are written in.
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