My Dishwasher Hates Me

My dishwasher used to work just fine all the time and never gave me any problems.  It's old as dirt - we've lived in this house for 5 1/2 years and it was several years old then.  It is the LOUDEST dishwasher I have ever heard.  When it's running, you can't watch TV in the living room because you can't HEAR it over the dishwasher!  You can actually hear the dishwasher running when you are standing outside in the yard, even with the windows and doors shut.  Honest!  I tested it once. 


Then one day it decided to get screwy.  The door sensor doohickey - whatever it is that turns the machine off if you open the door while it's running, and then turns it back on when you close the door - has gone all wonky on me.  It shuts off in the middle of a cycle because it thinks the door is open.  At first it would do that, and all I had to do was push against the door and it would start back up and finish the cycle.  No big deal.

Then it started shutting off several times in each cycle.  And then - AND THEN - it started messing with me.  The stupid machine would start back up after I pressed on the door, wait for me to walk into the other room, and then immediately shut off again!  It would do this over and over again.  I started waiting in front of the dishwasher for a bit to make sure it wasn't going to shut back off, then when it seemed to be running fine I'd walk out.  Sometimes I'd just step out of the kitchen before it shut off; other times I'd get all the way into the bedroom or hallway before I heard it cut off.  Stupid machine! I swear I heard it snickering at me.  

When it's really feeling feisty, it will stop again as soon as I take my hand off the door.  For one span of time, I had to actually hold my weight against the door to keep it running, and then sloooowly and gently ease away from it.  (I thought maybe I could trick it into behaving!)  One day it just would NOT stay running, and I pulled one of the kitchen chairs in front of it and piled a bunch of heavy stuff on it so it would lean on the dishwasher door and keep pressure on it.  It didn't work.  I get fed up one day after a particularly snarky dance with the machine, and kicked the door.  THAT worked.  For a little while at least.

It's been suspiciously well-behaved recently, which means that some day soon it's probably going to find a way to flood my house or destroy all my dishes.  It's just saving up its energy.