Friday, August 31, 2012

I Heart Modern Conveniences

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a working dryer.  But it was a tough road to get here, people; I won't lie to you about that.  A week of wandering around our neighborhood with wet baskets of laundry while my neighbors pretended not to be home (at least, that's what I assume); a canceled repair appointment yesterday, because the repairman was running late at his other jobs; and then, finally, this morning - 15 minutes late - he walked in my door (and into my heart).

Because I'm not just a one-serviceman type of gal, I guess...

Again, like last week, I sat upstairs listening to productive-sounding clangs and crashes.  This time, however, I spent the time plotting what to do should he tell me there was yet another part to be ordered.  I had just settled on the idea of holding the repairman hostage until it arrived, when he announced that he had indeed fixed the dryer.  He even invited me downstairs to check out how hot it was.

There's a joke there, but I'm not taking it.  I'm better than that.

It lives!
Excited, I ordered Rachel to move her wet clothes into the dryer, even as my rescuer was walking out the door.  And a good thing I did...

"Mommy! It's making a weird sound!"

"No, it's fine.  He just showed me that it works."

"No, it's weird!"

Darned if the kid wasn't right - the dryer was refusing to tumble.  Thoughts of a dryerless 3-day weekend reverberating through my panicked mind, I ran out to the parking lot, waving my arms at my former hero's departing car.  I have no dignity when it comes to laundry, apparently.  None.

Reader, that repairman is an honorable soul.  I know this, because he turned his car around and came back in the house. 

"Just a loose belt, ma'am," he reassured me, as I hovered nervously in the laundry room doorway, blocking any chance of egress on his part.  "Should be just fine now."

"Are you sure?" I asked, before I unlocked the front door to let him out.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, eyeing the exit a tad anxiously.  "Fixed her right up!"

And he had.  It works!  Don't you love happy endings?




9 comments:

  1. So glad you caught him in time! What an ordeal.

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  2. Yay! This is great news! Good to know there is an honorable repair person out there.

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  3. Ha! I totally would have held him hostage too. And I KNOW that clunk noise! My dryer did that with a load of cloth diapers in it and yup, it needed a whole new belt. And I was hovering, asking, "Is it like a car? Like how when you replace a belt in a car all the other older parts can't keep up and they start breaking too?" Because at one point I had a car that I could predict the cost of repair within $50 just based on the noise it made when it died.

    Oh, this dependence on fickle and unreliable machines and the Chosen Ones who can fix them.

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  4. Yay! I remember asking my grandma what the greatest invention she'd seen over the course of her lifetime was and without hesitation she said, "The washer and dryer." Glad yours is working again!

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  5. Just like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!

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  6. Congratulations! So glad you survived the ordeal. I'm not sure I could have managed.

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  7. You were happy with that repairman: he got away with calling you "ma'am" despite your apparent youth, and he got away with referring to a household appliance with a feminine personal pronoun, "her" instead of "it."

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  8. i only have 5 kids, and we were without a dryer for 4 weeks. you can imagine what a glorious magical treat that was to catch up on. i may have thrown things out. and by may have, i mean i did, and we bought new stuff. i'm responsible like that.

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