Please remove your floor and call us in the morning

Last week we were supposed to have a new dishwasher installed. It had been sitting in our living room for a few days while the company figured out who was going to come put it in, and I was so pleased that we actually had an installation date! Jonathan and I waited around the house for the required hours ("The technician will be there between 11 and we're not sure when") and when he finally showed up, we led Nice Technician to the house with great rejoicing.
While he got started, I went to the back bedroom to put Jonathan down for a nap. About ten minutes later, I realized that there was no longer any noise coming from the kitchen. Hmm. I decided I'd better check it out, and Jonathan wasn't going to sleep anyway. As I walked into the kitchen, I was greeted with a rueful look and the statement "we have a problem." Oh. Uh oh. My visions of a beautifully working dishwasher by the end of the afternoon began to crumble around my feet.

Nice Technician very kindly informed me that there was no way he could install the dishwasher, because the floor level was too high. Um, what? Yes, that's right, the floor level is higher than the dishwasher. Evidently the previous homeowners put down laminate flooring on top of the original lineoleum, raising the level of the floor 1/4 of an inch higher than the level of the dishwasher. "You can take up the floor, and then call us back to install it for you. Or you could just take up 1.5 feet of the floor in front of the dishwasher. That would work too." Oh. Well. If that's all I have to do.

So away went Nice Technician. And I called my brother and informed him of my woes (which also included a teething ten-month-old, but that' s another story.) Wonderful Brother was full of great ideas for how to get around the problem...like taking the counter off and lifting the dishwasher out that way. Um, thank you, Wonderful Brother, but I think that might be just as difficult as pulling up the flooring. :)

Fast forward to the weekend. My family just happened to be visiting this past Saturday. Dad and Wonderful Brother walked through the door and immediately attacked the problem. (I planned it this way, just so they could have lots of entertainment during their visit!) :) After about 12.5 minutes of tinkering, Dad informs me that Nice Technician was actually Lazy Technician. Dad, Wonderful Brother, Studly Husband, and Friendly Neighbor had the dishwasher out within 30 minutes. And the new one was installed in another hour or two.

And they didn't even scratch the floor.