Have you ever gotten the feeling that every appliance in your home is about to launch a simultaneous self-destruct sequence? Our washing machine is still limping along and the clothes dryer has recently developed a horrendous screech. But the latest in a series of straws dropped this morning, when our dishwasher unleashed a nasty surprise.

As per my normal morning routine, I stepped away from the computer and headed into the kitchen to put my coffee cup into the dishwasher …

I had just opened the dishwasher’s door and pulled out the top rack to load it up, when WHAM-O!, the nearly full rack came crashing down in a hail of glass shards. It was a mess. The casualties included a couple of coffee cups that lost their handles and four or five smashed drinking glasses. One of the glasses was a nice Lenox glass, unfortunately. But we were lucky. Most of the broken glasses were Target and Ikea cheapies.

As I was cleaning up the glass, I decided that it was time to finally fix the darn dishwasher. Yes indeed, I have become emboldened through my recent successful vacuum cleaner repair experience. I took a good look at the broken parts (which allowed the rack to fall) and thought, “how tough could it be to fix this?”

No need to call our pal Bob the Appliance Guy for this simple repair … it’s a straightforward remove and replace.

I wrote down the dishwasher model number and headed back out to the computer. With a few clicks, I found a cool online appliance parts store (repairclinic.com) and quickly located a set of rack rollers that we need to replace the broken ones. The rack rollers come in sets of four and look to literally be a snap to replace. With any luck, the parts should be here by Saturday. The rack rollers were in stock and the company will ship today via DHL. All in all, I spent twenty-five bucks on the parts, including shipping. I don’t think I could get my applicance repair buddy into the driveway for less than a C-note.

One more thing to scratch off the ranchero indebto to-do list.