What’s gotten into you? You’re all giddy and loving, sweet as sugarcane. “Why, sweetie, that’s what garbage does to a girl.”

We had a garbage disposal when we lived in Texas and Florida, but these past three and half years, we’ve gone (read: suffered a woebegone existence ) without one in New York. When you’re a household of one or two, you can tolerate such a thing, but when you have kids, the garbage situation is unearthly. Enter the half-eaten cereal bowl. The soggy mess, if dumped in the kitchen sink, clogs up the drain, and I must put my hands into the creamed bits of soggy cereal chunks, to force it down the drain, or worse, scoop it up and throw it away in the actual garbage can.

Today, a new dishwasher is being installed, and I hope beyond hopes that I needn’t clean the dishes first before loading, AND that there’s no soap granules left in the dispenser after it runs (I’ve read reviews and am now panicked). I will likely spend the night reading the manual and hoping to understand how to, once and for all, use the wine stem latch on the top rack. A new dishwasher and a garbage disposal—I never thought I’d say it—are truly a Valentine’s Day dream.