To tackle the clog, you'll need the right arsenal. You gather:

It starts with a slow drainage of water from the dishwasher. At first, you might not even notice it, but as time passes, the water begins to pool at the bottom of the appliance. You're still getting clean dishes, but the process is taking longer, and you're starting to worry. One day, the dishwasher decides to stop working altogether, leaving you with a sink full of dirty dishes and a pressing need to fix the problem.

We speak often of the heavy burdens of the heart—the grief that sits like a stone, the regret that congeals in the corners of the mind—but we rarely speak of the smaller, quieter suffocations. We rarely speak of the dishwasher.