OK: why a dishwasher? Because I grew up in America, where every kitchen has a dishwasher.

I didn’t have one when I lived in England, or Malta, or West Germany. We did buy one in Mexico, which never worked, an example of such excellent design that its criteria for determining when enough water had entered the device was not a float switch – silly thought! – but a timer. As in, the valve has been open for three minutes, therefore the machine has enough water to run. Never mind that our roof-tank water pressure was so low that it never filled in three minutes.

Oh well.

When we moved to Uruguay, there was a brief weekend where VAT (22%) was eliminated, so we hastily bought all our appliances at effectively an 18% discount, including a dishwasher. We didn’t of course, take time to learn that its shortest cycle was an hour and a half, and we basically used it as a drying rack, running the short pump cycle to clear out water. Then the control panel died. Being quite sure the manufacturer (James) would not have electronic replacements for a 15 year old machine, I tore into it, and with some remote Whatsapp guidance from an appliance repair guy, rewired the main on-off button to run just the drain pump. Problem solved! Except that a drying-rack dishwasher that never runs is a different beast than one run occasionally to help clean itself out. In a word, gross.

At this point we had only two of our original appliances still working: a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner, both Electrolux (our other James device, a clothes drier, also un-alived itself by control panel failure). So Electrolux it was for the new dishwasher, with a rapid cycle. Ordered before retrograde Mercury, it was delayed and arrived on June 29, my birthday and the start of retrograde Mercury. Arrived with significant dents, like it had been dropped.

If you know anything about retrograde Mercury, you’re now nodding slightly with a wry smile.

The eventual response was an offer to return my money, or give me a 30% discount. I chose the former. Later I realized the other option was stupid, since damage in transit is not covered by the manufacturer’s guarantee. So I got my money back. And the vendor said, no need to return the dishwasher; do with it what you will.

I hooked it up, repeatedly got a “water won’t heat” error, descended into the nine circles of Montevideo to Electrolux repair for an estimate they never produced – because they said it was working fine. Picked it up, installed it again, building a shelf because it’s smaller than the previous one, and yes, it is working.

The $1.49? Exchange rate difference between the original charge and the refund.

As with any appliance purchase, we ended up with an abundance of cardboard, wonderful for starting fires.

And yes, lavavajillas is the Spanish word for dishwasher.

Which means that detergente para lavavajillas should be just the ticket for the machine, right?

Wrong. It’s regular dish detergent, and leaves the dishwasher full of suds that take forever to go away.

I don’t have to tell you why I know this.

I haven’t lived in the Untied Snakes in almost 20 years, but I don’t remember blocked aisles in supermarkets being a regular occurrence, as they are here. I don’t think many supermarkets up north have such crowded aisles.

I’m going to go way out on a limb, and guess that it wasn’t a customer who left a ladder blocking the aisle. And with crowded aisles, you might think employees here would take more care not block them. You would be wrong, of course.

That would involve assuming the employees are paying attention, or care. Also, situational awareness isn’t really a thing in Uruguay. That’s nice in a laid-back kind of way. Sometimes.

I had to pick up some lumber the other day, and couldn’t help—again—be amazed at some of what’s on display. In this case, a 1″ x 20″ (yes, two-oh) 12-foot clear pine board. (Alas, I didn’t ask its cost.)

Flash back to Home Depot, over 20 years ago, searching for bargain 2x4s that weren’t totally bent and twisted and full of knots….

This is where our weekly street market is located. During Thursday afternoon, all regular traffic for every house on each block is restricted. That’s a fair number of houses.

So what if there’s an emergency and police or an ambulance need access?

Not to worry: there are rules directing the vendors to leave enough space in the road for a large vehicle to pass.

“Emerson,” you ask? My favorite quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882 ): A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds….

Which reminds me of the question, “How do you say ‘quality control’ in Latin America?”

To which the answer is often, “¿Que?”