Conceding Defeat

Photo courtesy of PhotoBucket

Our laundry woes have taken a dark turn. 

First, a quick recap (including previously unreleased information):

During the dreaded attack of the flu and Fifth's Disease the week of Christmas, there were many things that occurred in our home WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION! I was incapacitated for days and days. And during that parental vacuum, our two youngest sons (who have repeatedly been given instructions on how to properly do the laundry) crammed so many items in the washing machine that things were climbing over the edges of the drum. We didn't know it then, but that was the cause of all the washing machine issues which ended up including 6 visits by repairmen, and $300+ in repairs. Oh yes, and that also led to the purchase of a new dryer. 

It happened this way: 
 1. The washer was stuffed tightly to overflowing with dirty boy clothes and started.
 2. When it began spinning, several of their socks, unbeknownst to anyone, went over 
     the top of the drum.
 3. The load could not balance itself and therefore would not spin out.
 4. The boys then took the unspun, dripping wet load and put it in the dryer (the old one  
     with a perforated drum).
 5. The dryer, never intended to deal with gallons of water, shorted out and completely 
     fried itself. Thankfully, I had stumbled into the kitchen about this time and smelled   
     that hot, electrical, frying wire smell and unplugged it.
 6. Then followed the clothesline-in-the-garage incident in which we attempted to dry 
     that massive load of boy clothes in very cold weather (it took like 3 days) expecting 
     the delivery of our dryer any day. 
 7. My new dryer took over a week to come in and during that time we realized the  
     washing machine was not working--it wouldn't spin out a load. 
 8. Then all the repairman visits followed during which time two different parts were  
     ordered and installed without resolving the problem.
 9. During the 6th visit by a repairman, it was finally discovered that the real problem   
     with the washing machine was the several boy socks that had become lodged between 
     the outside of the drum and the wall of the washer and prevented a properly 
     functioning spin cycle.
10. Immediately upon the removal of said socks, the washing machine instantaneously 
      resumed normal operations. While waiting the two and a half weeks for this 
      momentous event, the new dryer was delivered and installed. 
11. My precious husband had picked it out for me while I was still horizontal and feverish. 
     And he did an outstanding job of choosing the one he thought would be the very best  
     one. The only problem was, it didn't get the clothes dry. At least not without running  
     it for two complete cycles. I thought it was simply too energy-efficient for its own  
     good. But I certainly wasn't going to mention it to Kregg. I just assumed I would be 
     drying each load twice for the next several years. Until Saturday, when it simply quit 
     drying anything. 
12. I called the store where we purchased it because it is still under warranty. Fine, they  
     will send out a repairman. TWO WEEKS FROM NOW! 

In the meantime?


I think we are going to just admit defeat. I'm considering looking for a nudist colony that allows large families. My one requirement? We must be allowed to live in complete anonymity and totally isolated seclusion, defined as 100 square miles per single inhabitant. If you have a recommendation, please let me know because I have yet to find a suitable place. 

And if we can't quite make the leap to living in a nudist colony, Plan B would be designing our own line of disposable clothing. I'm thinking paper towels and duct tape could be transformed into quite fashionable items. Have you see all the cute prints in paper towels these days? And the rainbow of duct tape colors truly is inspiring.

Since I will have much more free time on my hands now that laundry is off my list, I'm thinking of taking up a new hobby, say bottle cap collecting or taxidermy. 

Come to think of it, another benefit to doing laundry no more is all that extra space I will have in my utility room. Perhaps I could fit in a couple more bookshelves? Or we could use all that extra space for more paper towels and duct tape for our disposable clothing. I could put the floral print paper towels, for the girls, on one side where the washer was and the plain white paper towels on the other side in the dryer's spot, for the boys. 

This whole laundry fiasco may end up being quite wonderful in the end.