Old-Time Washing Machine

Today I am grateful for old-time washing machines.  I absolutely hate that all of my new “smart” appliances are smarter than me.  All of them!  But today I’m pissed off at the washer.

You know that power-nap-day I had, fighting off something?  Well something fought back and found me.  Now I’m down for the count and eating antibiotics like they were chocolate chips.  I wish.

I woke up this morning at five, with my hair as wet as if I had just come out of the shower, my night shirt drenched and my pillow smelling like a wet cat.  Actually, everything smelled like a wet cat, except himself who just slept through it. . .like a cat.

I had just washed the sheets so wasn’t invested in stripping the bed, which is difficult to do anyway, what with Himself dug in and clinging to them like they were a parachute and he just got pitched out of a plane.

So, I decided to wash my pillow, cases and nightshirts.  No biggie.  I tossed them in the washer and by 5:30, they were banging around in the washer, beating themselves to death, trying to escape.

I went in to check out the ruckus and fix the unbalanced load, pushing pause, like the instructions on the washer say to do if you want the lid to unlock so you can open it.  Voila!  I rearranged the soggy load, shut the lid and pushed the button to un-pause.  More water started filling in.

“What are you doing?” I asked the washer!  “You’re supposed to be spinning!”  It responded by swishing and glug-glugging at me while it continued to fill.

Repeat the above situation twelve times. . .until nine a.m.!!! when Himself got up, asked why I was standing guard in the laundry room and went to have his breakfast.  Same thing!  Unbalanced.  The washer and me.

Himself, always the problem solver, came in to counsel me on the operation of the “smart” washer.  He turned it to “drain & spin” which I didn’t even know was an option but would work well now, since I’ve already washed the load 12 times.  He suggested I put a couple of towels in to help balance the load.  Wish that worked on me!  If you see me walking around with towels draped all over me, you know I’m giving it a whirl.

No good.  That washer would have ripped up floor boards to try and escape that room if we had it nailed down.  It bounced and boomed and headed for the door like an ex-husband when on alimony is due.

The next three tries I decided to foil the blasted thing.  I stood guard. Then I got bored waiting for the show so I grabbed a coloring book.  Coloring makes everything better.  I took up residence in the laundry room, draping my very sick, very annoyed self over the top of it.  When it started to rock n roll, I’d be ready.

With a wide stance, I put pressure on it with my knees like it was a saddle. I was prepared to ride it out.  Yeeha!  People pay a lot of money for this kind of action in sports bars and I was getting it for free.

BAM!  “Again with the water filling?  How many times will you fill?” I screamed at it, nearly breaking my orange pencil over its white porcelain head.  Himself came running.  He is the referee between me and the appliances.  My only voice of reason.  We’re doomed.

“What’s going on in here?” he asked, like he was coaching a team and a fight between two ten-year-old’s had ensued on the field.  “Someone is not playing nice with others.”

“It’s not me,” I shouted!  “This stupid washer hates me!”  I went on a rant about how with the old washer you turned the blasted knob to what every you wanted it to doand it just did it.  Without complaint!  You didn’t have to pause to unlock or push again to start, you just lifted the damned lid!  “This piece ‘o shit won’t stop filling no matter what I do!”

“Maybe you should shut off the water valve,” he said.  Say what?

Boy do I hate it when someone comes late to the game and then wins with a common sense suggestion.  Just hate it.  But not as much as I was hating that 400-pound pillow, sucking up more water and sucking the life out of me.

A half an hour later, at 10:30 a.m. I was tossing the finally-spun-dry-stuff in the dryer.  And it only took one sick person, one smart washer, five bloody hours and one PhD Ceramic Scientist.  Oh. . . how I miss my old-time, perpetually stupid washing machine!  We had so much in common.