My wife doesn’t call me “Mr. Fix-It” for nothing. In fact, she doesn’t call me at all. After a recent home-repair debacle, when something breaks she cuts straight to the chase and calls someone who actually knows what he’s doing.

I fancy myself as being good with my hands. So when our dishwasher started to make a horrible grinding noise – similar to the one I imagine teachers making with their teeth when they learn how much David Spade makes per movie – I decided to be a manly man, save a few bucks, and fix the thing myself.

The first step in fixing any problem is diagnosing it correctly. So I opened the dishwasher and peered inside. This was no mere peek, either; I used my Special Manly Man Diagnostic Peering (SMMDP)™ – lips pursed just so, brow furrowed just enough to look serious and thoughtful, but not so much that I look like a shar-pei puppy (or Fred Thompson).

Then, I shut the dishwasher and did what guys do – I banged on it with my fist.

The first thing we noticed after my wife finished bandaging my hand was that the problem was still there. In fact, it seemed to have gotten worse (or maybe that was just a reaction to the pain medication). At any rate, the dishwasher was still making an irritating noise. Not as irritating as my wife’s eye-rolling, but irritating nonetheless.

Clearly, this was going to be a tougher nut to crack than I had anticipated, and more drastic measures were in order.

Much to my surprise, kicking the dishwasher was no more effective than hitting it. But because I was wearing boots, I did not break anything – on my body, I mean. And since a dent is technically not a break, I guess technically I didn’t break anything on the dishwasher, either. The noise, however, continued unabated.

Stymied, I stooped to something I rarely do – I gave the problem some actual thought. Perhaps a plate was wobbly and vibrating noisily, or maybe a fork was banging against the wall of the dishwasher. So I unloaded it and cranked it up again.

The noise was still there. So now I’m thinking, maybe it’s the dishwasher itself and not something inside it making the noise. There aren’t many moving parts inside a dishwasher, so I started unscrewing screws and removing bits until I discovered the obvious (even to me) problem – a broken plastic washer. I mended it with Gorilla Glue (I was way past the duct tape stage), beat on my chest, and declared the problem solved.

Would it surprise you to learn that the noise was still there? Broken and defeated, I threw in the towel – the one I’d been using to soak up water and blood. The next morning I called the repair guy. He saw the problem immediately – the broken washer wasn’t broken; it was supposed to have a gap in it. The noise was caused by too many suds – the result of you-know-who using the wrong kind of detergent.

I won’t tell you what this lesson cost me, but I will tell you how to identify the dishwasher repair guy – he’s the one driving to work in a new Porsche.