The New Washing Machine

Coincidence? Perhaps. No one will ever know for sure…..in my last blog, I wrote about how Hannah the Hamster (aka – Hannah The Escape Artist) was very recently extracted from the guts of my washing machine.

Max The Wonderdog – or Max The Hamster Hunter – (please refer to my last blog entry) quickly located her, by smell, as being inside the washing machine. We all had our doubts but we couldn’t overlook Max’s intense concentration on the lower, front corner of the appliance.

Now, understand that my washer has been on the fritz for the past six months. It came with the house, but if I had to make a guess, I would think the washer was probably 20 years old. In recent weeks, it has been acting up and, really, has developed its own little personality. It will knock and bang around a load and will run so loudly, that I would start a load of wash and leave my home, just so that I would not have to listen to the ruckus. On many occasions, I have gone to the basement to find my washing machine had strolled across the floor – possibly to socialize with the water heater?? – you know, appliances really do need to get more social with each other…

Until the “Hannah” episode, the washer and I had formed a nice little relationship: she won’t bother me too much as long as I don’t bother her too much. However, the “Hannah” adventure tipped the scales in her favor. After my father disassembled parts of the machine in order that we could locate and remove Hannah from the inside, this washing machine has refused to run without incident.

Her wash cycles grew louder –as if she was screaming at me from the basement, "WHY DID YOU TOUCH ME???? I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH ME!!!! WE HAD AN UNDERSTANDING!!!” She would knock around in the basement, walking away from her little corner, in total refusal to cooperate as a functioning contributor to my household. Then, the other night, she put her foot down for the very last time. She ran all night, spewing water and never draining. I found her the next morning in a pool of lukewarm water, still churning the load I placed inside her at bedtime, the night before.

Well, that attitude from my washer just doesn’t “set” with me. It was time for her to go. And I was gonna throw out her little friend, Mr. Dryer, too. He just couldn’t seem to dry a single load of clothes without taking his own sweet time – sometimes taking two or three cycles to accomplish the job. I was sick of him sucking off my electricty while taking total advantage my benevolence - allowing him to remain under my roof without contributing 100% to the laundry effort.

So, let this be a lesson to all the other appliances living within the walls of my residence – get lippy with me and OUT YOU GO! Today, my new washer and dryer stand proudly in the spot vacated by the insubordinate ones. Gleaming white, they are not the big, fancy front loaders I often daydream about, but simple laundry sentinels, standing at the ready – awaiting their next load. The new crew washes and dries three times the capacity as the old ones in half the time. In fact, I am happy to report that, for the first time in several months, I am totally caught up on the laundry. And no back-talk from either of them!

So – I guess that the entire ecosystem within my household supports each other in ways I never even fathomed….it took one little escape adventure from Peanut’s hamster to trigger a whole chain of events that resulted in a brand new set of appliances that make me very, very happy.

I guess that in the “Ice Cream Capital of the World”, it is the little things that make me realize that life really is sweet!