The Valium Chronicles: Something's Burning

So, this morning I walked into my kitchen and while using a large knife to try and split open a frozen bagel, I smelled something curious.  It smelled like burning.  I was standing in front of my dishwasher, so the first thought that came to mind was ‘hot damn! It better not be the dishwasher!

I am SO not replacing that dishwasher!’  I’ve already replaced the dishwasher.  Further to my view that one should always buy  the best that one can afford, I’ve already replaced another expensive dishwasher with this expensive dishwasher.  According to my appliance repair man, who does not wear a nice uniform and smile a lot when NOT called (a la the Maytag repairman) , but rather smiles extensively when giving me a giant bill or bad news as to the demise of the machine in question, appliances these days are built to last 7-10 years. Anything more than that is gravy.  My other dishwasher, which was a Maytag, by the way, lasted 9 years. This one, a Kenmore Elite, is 4 years old. And actually, I wouldn’t mind
if it broke as I hate it, but I just don’t want to buy a new one.  It doesn’t have econo or short wash, and the cycle takes over an hour.  I bought it
because the salesperson at Sears told me no one really uses the short wash cycle and I believed him (even though I actually did use the short wash cycle in my dearly departed Maytag).  Buyers Beware:  of your own stupidity.

Anyhoo, back to the smell. The toaster wasn’t on. The oven wasn’t on. The coffee maker wasn’t on. The blender wasn’t on.  The only
appliance that was on was the dishwasher. I sniffed again, wriggling my nose like a drug-seeking dog, to see if I could identify the burning smell.
Although my olfactory capabilities aren’t stellar, I did determine it didn’t smell like burning electrical. That was a good thing.  The smell
was more like burning plastic or rubber. I know this smell because I often melt my utensils and other plastic accoutrements on my stove (by accident, obviously). I’ve also melted my Tupperware ‘marinator’ on the side of the barbeque, and multiple plastic-y kids cups, plates, bottles etc on the heating implement in the dishwasher, I knew that smell ( or so I thought).  I opened up the dishwasher with trepidation.

What did I find?  It was a giant wad of scrambled eggs being re-cooked on the heating element.

So then I had a conundrum:

a)Do I berate them for not scraping the plate off into the green bin before loading?

b)Hold a party that they put a plate in the dishwasher in the first place?

c) Try the eggs to see if they taste better that way.

What would you do?