The Washing Machine Adventure (Part 1)

My washing machine went out—a rubber burning smell emanated while washing clothes. It took me a while to figure the source of the smell. I let the load finish washing but didn't use it again. I was busy with pies for a couple days, so it was a while before I got around to calling a repair company.

Monday morning on the 22nd I called a repair company. They didn’t have an opening until Friday. Okay. But then they called around 1 and said they had someone available in a few minutes because of a cancellation. Meanwhile I washed a load of whites at a neighbor's house. They offered to dry the clothes as well, but I said my dryer was fine and took the wet stuff home to dry there. Ha! 

While the drying was going at home, the mechanic came. Basically, the entire inside mechanisms were shot. He gave me several quotes for repairs, raning from $650 to $1140. 

By dinnertime, the dryer had been going for about five hours, and the clothes were still damp. I gave up and just hung up everything outside (and inside), using every possible chair and bar and ladder and railing for a clothesline. 

Glenn came home from work, and I said that the dryer vents probably needed seriously cleaning out. Whether he decided to be helpful or saw it as a mandate, he took it upon himself to start that job right away. He vacuumed out the dryer lint traps and then began pulling lint out of the outside wall vent. I disconnected the hose from the dryer to the wall and handed him that through the window to clean out. Then I reached into the wall itself to pull out what lint I could from there. I found a dead bird covered in lint. So gross! Then the head showed up a few minutes later. 

“Oh, there’s the head!” I yelled, and Glenn started laughing. I seriously felt like I was in a movie where you’re supposed to laugh at the sad situation of the characters. We then told Sara and Caelan to stick their skinny arms into the wall vent, but now they were imagining finding all kinds of corpses in there.

Meanwhile, the sprinklers came on and re-soaked all the drying clothes. The sprinklers come on at random times despite what they’re programmed to do. I think they’ve become self-aware. They don't obey human commands anymore.

After an hour or two of vent cleaning (a $50 job for a professional), I put the newly wet clothes back in the dryer, and the dryer worked much, much better. At least I had clean--and dry--socks and underwear again.