It's a Wash

I hate doing laundry. I mean, there are a lot of household things that I really kind of enjoy, but laundry isn't one of them. Still, I'm the one who stays home, and it's my responsibility to do Nettl's and my clothes and linens.

Thinking I could get a head start on today, I decided after dinner last night to get the laundry out of the way. It's not like it's a huge job, because I do it every week without fail, resulting in only three average loads: darks, colors, and towels, etc. Sometimes there's another load, but not usually.

I threw the darks into the machine and came into the bedroom to take an after-dinner siesta. But something wasn't right. I wasn't hearing the noises I've gotten used to hearing, so I went to the laundry closet to have a look. Sure enough, the machine was full of water and dirty clothes, and just sitting there doing nothing. I tried to force it through its cycles, but there was no draining, no spinning. Nothing. Nettl and I wrung out everything by hand (Levis--ouch!) and put it in the kitchen sink to drain, then I wrung it out again and ran it through two dryer cycles.

Around noon today I"ll be at Ville's for a while, using her machine. Oh, hurt me. Then, on Saturday Nettl and I will be taking our anniversary money (we were going to go out of town for a night) to Sears to get another Kenmore. We're not too broken up over losing our romantic weekend though, because this could have happened when we didn't have the money to plop down on a new machine. We're still planning to go out to dinner, and let's face it, after raising kids together for the past 10 years, we've learned how to create romance in any situation.

I knew the thing was about to die, and I nursed it along for almost a year, but let's face it. It's serviced five adults and three teenagers in its lifetime; I think it's due some rest.