Sunday, December 28, 2008

I am the Human Washing Machine

What I have

This is what I have. A 1974 Maytag Washing Machine. I bought it off of a lady on Craigslist and I am grateful to have it. With that said, I will also tell you that I am so sick and tired of having second hand washers and dryers!

Today I was walking past the laundry room and I heard a sound much like a small babbling brook. For just a second I thought, "Oh that sounds relaxing." Then reality checked itself in and I realized that what I was really hearing was the water gushing from the split cold water hose. Oh lovely.

I turned the spigots off and decided to worry about it later, since I was on my way out the door wearing rain gear and boots to take the dogs to the dog park. All four of them. Oh, the fun we had in all the puddles, then the rinse off. And when we got home I decided what better time for baths! They are half wet and I am wearing rubber pants. Yay!

So when bath time was over I then decided to tackle the washer. What I figured was that I could just take the hot water hose off, and put it on the cold side and just wash in cold until I could get a new hose. Wrong. Here is a lesson learned. A 1974 Maytag washing machine, or possibly all washing machines, must have both hoses attached to the machine in order to work correctly. I learned this when I tried to run the washer on the cold hose only with no hot hose at all, and instead of filling up the tub with water, I only added another inch or so of water onto my floor. It came out the hot water hole in the back of the washer. ARGH!!!

Well, since I only had the one good hose, I figured I was screwed on even "jimmy rigging" a load to wash, when I remembered the three foot hose I have outside connected to my five line spigot for filling watering cans and such. Yeah, that just might work...or not. It wasn't until I got the hose connected to the spigot in the house that I realized it had the wrong end to connect to the washer. Double ARGH!!!

So I am now the washing machine cyborg. I manually turn the spigot on while holding the hose into the washer tub while it fills, then turn the water off when full, after it has washed, listen carefully for it to drain, so I can run in there and fill the tub again for the rinse cycle. Triple ARGH!

I no longer feel the least bit guilty for not going to the gym today. And I found the washer I want in my stocking next year. The Dyson 2009. Oh yeah baby. Come to momma.


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