Washing Machine

My 10-year old Maytag has bit the dust. It didn't die from overwork, I only generate enough wash for a couple of loads a week. Its death is more an indication of what's wrong with businesses as a whole.

The machine had not been used for a week. It was a week of power outages and surges. All the electronic equipment in the house (computers and things like that) are on surge protectors. Who would think a washing machine had enough brains to require one? Not me.

But, sure enough, when I went to the back porch to put a load of wash in the machine, I discovered it was dead. Totally dead. The breaker had not been tripped, but an electric surge had evidently fried the logic board. The electric company takes no credit for this, especially when one lives in a rural area.

I didn't pinpoint the problem for a week. I asked Bob to check it out. He's the one who said the breaker had not been tripped. He suggested there might be an internal breaker or fuse in the machine. I asked John (a self-professed expert on everything, and the person who had chosen this machine years ago) about that. He said, standing in front of his own empty pick-up truck, "Have Bob load it in his pick-up and take it to Zajic." Zajic is supposedly the best place in the county to get appliances fixed.

Well, Bob doesn't live here. When he does come out it's on a weekend and Zajic is closed then.

So I called Zajic to find out about the possibility of an internal breaker or fuse. Three days later, they still had not returned my call. I got online. For $28 Paypal, I accessed a site that has repairmen on duty. One of them immediately diagnosed the problem from my description, gave me a part number, and assured me that plugging in a new logic board was not difficult.

I called Zajic again. This time I got the owner. I told him no one had returned my call, and that now I needed a new part. He said, "Maytag sold out to Whirlpool. Whirlpool discontinued several models of Maytag, including the one you have. Even though the machine you have isn't that old, it's very difficult to find parts. If we could find this part, it costs $250. We can bring a new washer and install it for $1700."

No thank you. That's more than the combined worth of all the furniture in my house.

So I went to Sears Discount Store, the place where they sell dented and scratched appliances. There was a tall young salesman there who nabbed me when I came through the door. What fun he was! We looked at all the models, from the cheapest to one that was almost as expensive as a used car. He had answers for all my questions.

"My first requirement is I want a washing machine," I said, "that doesn't eat socks."

"Washing machines don't eat socks," he answered. "Dryers do that."

"I need to have a machine delivered and set up, and the old one hauled away, because even though I know lots of people with trucks, it will take months for any of them to do this. Especially the haul-away part. I already have 3 old couches sitting in my backyard waiting for my son to haul them away."

"Sounds like you need family counseling," he said. (I love smart alecks.)

The new washer won't be delivered until next week. That's 3 weeks without one. "Woe is me," I wailed as the pile of dirty clothes got higher and higher. I hate going to a laundromat, for one thing all those quarters are hard to pack around in your pockets. Plus there's always at least one pushy laundromat veteran there who manages to give me a hard time for not knowing all the rules.

Finally one morning when I woke up, there was no clean underwear, and the thought crossed my mind what a wimp I was being. Probably more than half the people in the world do not have a washing machine, I'd just do what they do, wash my clothes by hand. (Later it occurred me that perhaps lots of people go without underwear, too.)

The sink worked just fine. Did you know that laundry detergents don't make many bubbles these days? I didn't. That makes it easier to rinse the clothes. The hardest part was wringing out enough water so a load didn't take 3 trips through the dryer. I don't need a broken dryer right now.

I did underwear and T-shirts in the sink, but most of the dirty laundry consisted of denim jeans and sweatshirts. I came up with a different solution for those things. I dumped them all into the bathtub.

Then I took off my socks and stomped them clean. Like stomping grapes to make wine.

It was really, really hard to wring that stuff out, and it took a long time. But I got the job done.

Some 50 years ago I was attending UC Davis. My roommates and I rode bikes to school and around the campus, it was the only way to get around. One day, one of us used too much soap on the wash. As I was cycling to school in a rainstorm, soap bubbles started forming on the knees of my pants. Like they had rabies. It wasn't fun.

It's nice that laundry soap isn't bubbly these days. I'm sure people in Bangladesh appreciate that, too.