It's a wash

Monday was a bad day. Not the kind of bad day where someone gets hurt, but the kind of day when little annoyances reach a deafening pitch. You know, like coming home to cat urine all over the house, or a leaky pipe, or having your daughter's friend throw up all over the playground. You know.

I had that kind of day, so what do I do? I try to fix the washing machine.

This evil contraption gets clogged pretty easily. The price has been more than $100 to have someone pop off a tube, dig out the coin or lint, then reassemble it. This has been done twice already. For more than $300, we could almost get a new washer that isn't the piece of crap we have.

By the way, I find Sears products to be substandard. Sears has dropped in my book. Darn Sears. Their appliances break easily and are costly to repair. It's a scam and I think those repair contacts are like black mail. Sears, indeed!

So, I attempted to fix the washer. Remember, I'm the guy who flooded the downtairs bathroom when I tried to fix the upstairs toilet. I'm the guy who sent untold volts of electricty through my body when I was fixing a stove. I'm the guy. ... You get the picture.

I got the offending hoses off the washer, which dumped gallons of soapy water all over the basement (with no drain) floor. I disassembled the filter and pump to clean it out. All was going well. Then I had to put it back together.

Because I didn't have the right-sized tool, I stripped the heads of the screws with my hex tool. Why can't they just use regular screws and not these custom-fitted metric monsters? It's like the old headlights on cars: I had to buy two new tools to replace the headlights. It's a scam, I tell you. Nothing wrong with the simple flat-head or, if I'm feeling crazy, the Philip's head. A hex on the hex!

Then the clamp on one of the hoses snapped off of my pliers and cut me a nice canyon on my knuckle.

After several hours, I got everything put back together. I did the job so well that, not only would the water still not drain out of the washer, but the spin cycle amped up to airplane take-off velocity and wouldn't stop! I thought my washer was going to go airborne!

So, I calmly unplugged it and tried to open the door (it's a front loader -- oh, they're evil!). The door was locked. It would not come loose, so I yanked it open. That showed it. Now the door won't seal properly.

Still with an inner peace I swear Gandhi couldn't have felt, I collected my tools, toweled them off and walked upstairs to talk to my wife:

"We're going to buy a new washer."

She understood immediately (we've been married almost 16 years) and went online to order one. A top-loader this time! And we saved some cash on a discount! And the company would take away the old carcass! And it would be delivered Tuesday! And installed!

And it's from Sears.

Thought: Serenity now!