The New Washing Machine

Our washing machine broke down. I know I said it didn't spin, but I was wrong.

Not spinning is bad enough. We don't have a dryer, and laminate flooring warps when you let water sit on it for too long. Soaked washing dripping down on it for hours on end is not a good thing.

Then I fell with my bike. Boyfriend threw a total and utter fit, even if we later found out that we were the ones not supposed to be biking there. I still maintain that anyone operating heavy machinery in public should watch where they're steering it, but hey, that's me. My injuries consisted of a hurty thumb for about a week and a bruise under my nail. A small one.

What really bothered me was my new jacket being stained. Badly. By oil. And the washing machine wouldn't spin. Then again, it was a fleece jacket, so creases weren't really an issue. I called Wonderaunt, Mistress of Stains (She's a kindergarten teacher who tames toddlers and is still willing to tell parents that, yes, Timmy spilled suchandsuch on his jeans, but buy/find this random thing and you'll get it out relatively easily. On most things laundry related, I call my mom. When it comes to stains that I know won't come out by soaking it with cold water as soon as possible, I go to Wonderaunt), who told me to get dish soap on it and chuck it in the washer pronto, spinning or not.

I rubbed in dish soap, I threw it in the washer.

The machine, as  before, flipped out. No spinning, cycle cut by two-thirds, uncertain result. I got my jacket out of there and found it wasn't washed. It was still stained. The soap was still a white foam inbetween the fibres.

At this point, I had no more clean jeans and Boyfriend was out of pajama bottoms. So I swallowed my pride and fear of being even more of a burden than I already am and lugged a laundry basket full of dirty laundry to J.'s house, asking if she could please help.

It was no problem. We got out laundry back clean, folded and covered in strange, white celulose. I'm assuming one of my jeans pockets had either a receipt or a shopping list in there. Oops.

A short discussion with J. and W. revealed that the cheapest and most lasting solution was to buy a new machine. There was a cheap one on sale, it could be delivered, they'd sponsor us a bit, old machine was taken away, it would even get installed.

I got out my mastercard and ordered it with all the trimmings. The trimmings weren't free, but W. had his arm operated on and wasn't allowed to lift, and I know my own handiness with carrying biiiiiig, heaaaavy things.

So the day came when it had to arrive. Boyfriend had endured hotlines to find out the when (which turned out to be technically an ETA, but it was so nonspecific it might as well have been our own estimate). The company had said that, at the latest, a truck would arrive at three pm.

A quarter to four, a truck pulled up. Two men came up, with a new washing machine, disgruntled that we hadn't done more than shut off the water supply and unplug the old machine. Could I sign here please?

They took the old machine and disappeared. Without installing the new one. Unpacking only half of the things that came with the machine.

After fifteen minutes, we were quite certain they'd gone and left us high and dry.

Boyfriend called the helpline, expressing our anger and disappointment while I tried to see if we could install it ourselves.

I plugged it in. I removed the transport safety. I attached the drainage pipe. I checked all revealed bags for a hose to attach the water supply to. There was none. The instruction manual insisted there was, but it appeared to be either lying, or the men had taken it with them.

Oh, and Iggy had responded to two disgruntled strangers and my growing agitation by peeing indoors about three times and trying to pull out my underwear out through the holes in the hamper.

I went to S. in the studio and vented. I vented loudly and long. Customers witnessed my woe-is-me performance. S. offered to drive me to a hardware store after work and fetch a hose, so I could wash. All I had to do was get my purse, the washer's manual and probably some kind of serial number.

I got my purse, the manual and checked for serial numbers wherever I could think of. Filter cap, back of the machine and inside--

There was a plastic bag inside the machine. It held a hose. We had had a hose for three hours. I could have kicked myself. I told S. I'd found it, called J. and W., who would drive us to the hardware store the next morning if it didn't work, and finished installing the machine.

Then there was washing. A lot of washing. The best part of the week got taken up by washing. Partly because we hadn't had a laundry machine for up to three weeks, partly because we'd put off doing laundry until we had to before that and, oh yes, our bedlinens were overdue for a wash.

I love the new machine. All I can say against it is that it's slow and does not come with a handy-dandy 'shorten cycle' button, which is basically the same complaint twice. It does come with a 'mini 30' cycle, which is washing a small load for 30 minutes on 30 centigrade. I abuse that cycle beyond all common decency. Don't get me wrong. The full cycles get used, and get used often, but I'm no longer forced by visions of dead polar bears and burning rain forests to not run the 2-hour cycle just to clean three T-shirts and a knitted hat. I don't wait a week to do coloreds when I have only a small load of them.

Whites, darks and towels, I've got little choice but to do a full cycle. Towels and bedlinens have the cellular life forms purged from them at 60 centigrade. Darks especially pile up, and sometimes I get real philosophical about what that means about our outlook on life, but what it basically means is that men don't get fun-colored pajama bottoms and I know better than to buy white jeans.