Tomatoes, dishwashers and lead

Recently the FDA ordered that all tomatoes be taken off the shelf in grocery stores and banned restaurants from serving them, because several hundred people got salmonella poisoning from some tainted tomatoes.  Because the FDA confuses itself with the CIA, they wouldn't release information on the origin of the bad tomatoes for fear of...actually I have no earthly idea why they wouldn't say, but I've seen all those movies lately about midnight CIA renditions to secret prisons where god knows what happens to you, so I'm not complaining, merely observing that its a little weird.  

But anyway, Lou Dobbs, CNN's resident venerable crazy old uncle in the attic, thinks that George W. Bush should be impeached.  Hmm, okay, he is a pretty big fuck up.  Took the country to war under false pretenses, okayed the outing of undercover CIA agents, used to own the Texas Rangers--all of these could be impeachable offenses, maybe.  So which does Lou Dobbs think warrants the censure?  None of the above.  Actually, he wants Bush to be impeached because of the tomato salmonella case!  I shit you not, a major news network is letting one of their talking heads suggest this idea.  Apparently old Lou has had enough, W!  Fox News, you may not be "Fair and Balanced" like you claim, but at least you're not "Random and Crazy" as CNN clearly aspires to be. While we're on the topic, I would like to impeach Bush because the grocery store sold out of cherries yesterday, and then on the way home a dick-head driving a pick-up cut me off.  

So the FDA won't tell where the salmonella came from, but fear not, for I may have cracked the case.  I'm sorry to say that there's a very good chance that the salmonella originated from my dishwasher.  It has been getting progressively more cruddy lately, so today I decided to completely disassemble the thing and give it a proper clean.  And holy hell, I need to be apologize to everyone who may have eaten a meal at my house over the past 2 years.  That thing was beyond filthy.  My building is 8 years old and the dishwasher has clearly never been cleaned thoroughly, ever.  

The funny thing about taking a dishwasher apart, and I'd never done this before, is that you keep finding more and more pieces that come off.  There are the 2 rotating washer things, the clips that hold them on plus 2 nuts and 2 washers a piece, plus the grates, plus the primary drain filter.  Then you get to the secondary drain filter, which isn't visible until you take the primary out, and sweet Jesus that is the mother load of disgusting.  Tomato peel, long human hair--see wife, I told you your hair gets fucking everywhere!--, and several ounces of organic mud that I carbon-dated to be at least 5 years old.  It was a horrendous experience, but at least now I know my dishwasher is actually clean and performs cleaning operations, as opposed to depositing a fine layer of toxic sludge over the plates off of which I eat.  Of course, when I finished putting all the clean parts back together, I had to wash every kitchen utensil, every plate, bowl, glass, but at least now I am pretty confident that I can have people over for dinner without them getting sick the next day.

So the moral of the story is this: if you've never taken your dishwasher apart to clean, do it.  I swear, this is one of those things that archaeologists will look back on in 1000 years and laugh at us for, for bringing about our own demise out of laziness through slow poisoning.  Hmm, sounds suspiciously like Rome and the lead in the aqueducts!  And we already have our Nero...