Friday, September 05, 2008

Because that whole "Simple Living" Thing had already been taken

Yes, I give tutorials. This is (I believe) called plumbing.
If you go into your laundry room and look behind those large white boxes that swirl water and soap, then suck all the water and soap out, and dispose of it somewhere near your drinking water source, and the other large-ish square thingie that dries the water out of all your delicates... You will likely find this type of plumbing in your home as well.
See? Here you see how closely those tubey things are located to the washer thingie.
I've never paid that much attention to these things myself. I put my stuff in one box, turn a dial, wait for a while, then hurl it in the other box, and generally the clothes come out clean and dry enough to deposit back into messy bedrooms for 11 hours or so until I throw them back into those same boxes for a repeat performance.

Recently, it has come to my attention that things are never as simple as they appear. (Could someone please send Martha this briefing?) For example, if the first box doesn't seem to perform its spin cycle properly, and the clothes come out dripping with water and soap, a service call may be in order. Now these guys don't exactly hang out on the corner with a cardboard sign that says "Will work for food" or anything affordable like that. So, for $62.48, service guy came to our house, grunted appreciatively, banged some tools around, and graciously informed us that the drainage hose had a kink in it. A Sixty-two Dollar kink. That I could have un-kink-ified myself for $0.00.

I think its time to start paying attention.

These hoses are high-tech, deadly, expensive, rebellious little suckers.
In fact, just yesterday the hose slipped out of the other hose (are you keeping up with the technical jargon?). Now when this type of hose slippage occurs, you may just lose the connection between the hose that carries the water from the washing machine to the hose that carries that waste water out, out, out away from your house to some mysterious location likely close to our drinking water well.

So, while I was blissfully reading, my appliances and hoses were conspiring against me in the bathroom and dumping an entire washing machine worth of water on the floor. Now, sometimes when things spill, I tell myself that its probably for the better since the floor likely was overdue for a good mopping anyway.

Not fifty million litres. Nobody's floor is that dirty.
Or their vents.

So, if you are tired of simple living, try living like me for a while. Don't pay any attention to hoses or connections or technical details about how things work. Instead of planning to do housework on Saturdays like your mother taught you; or teaching your lazygoodfornothing children how to do the housework for you; simply wait for tubes and hoses to spring loose and geyser-ize your home for you. Think of it as recycling. Why let all that perfectly good soapy water go to waste? In fact, you may want to test your houseplants for durability against Tide, and set them near the laundry area as well. Water your geraniums, do your wash, and mop the floor. All in one foul swoop.

Simple living? That's just Sooooooooooooooooo last March.

15 comments:

Judy said...

Simple living can only be done well if one has large wads of cash in ones pocket. Of this I am convinced. The gods of simple living demand a large sum for their cooperation.

I don't have a hose coming from my washer. I have an elephant's trunk. Sometimes, the elephant is agreeable, and snorts the water out and spues it into the proper recepticle.

Sometimes, the elephant snorts the water up, and then rears back it's ugly head and sprays the water up, Up, UP into the air and makes that happy elephant sound as the water hits the ceiling and falls where it will. It wills to fall on the dry clothes, swaying gently on hangers - mostly.

The elephant especially likes to do this when no one is looking, so I am not exactly sure why he does this.

Anonymous said...

That is the funniest story I have read in a long time! I can totally relate to your simple living but you have put it down in such a humorous format....I laughed myself silly....thanks for that laugh first thing on a Friday morning. You are a wonderful writer and no doubt the same kind of person!

Jennie C. said...

Thanks for the morning smile you silly girl.

Romeo Morningwood said...

Kinky :)

You got totally HOSED by that guy!
Live N Learn..
you could have had coffee with that bored Maytag guy.

Admiral
((ptooey!))

Valerie Ruth said...

too funny!

Anonymous said...

Joyce, you are too funny. I was talking to someone the other day who hadn't WASHED behind their washer for a few months!! I informed her that I don't think I EVER have, and I've lived here for 12 years. Simple living -- I like it. cleaning every Sat???? as a child I decided that wouldn't happen in my home, and it doesn't. Simple living -- beautiful! Love you, your Schwester Mary

lettuce said...

i'm sorry, this post is too scarey

i hate water (in the wrong places) in the house

tanya said...

My floor really is that dirty...maybe you could do your laundry over here.

Anonymous said...

Funny!!

Leanne said...

I am so happy that I live with a plumber :)
Sympathizing with you - water going in places it doesn't belong is NOT fun. But your writing about it sure makes a great story!

Roo said...

eeeeeeeeeeeee! say it aint so!!!!!!!!!!!!

kindred heart.

ha! i am fast remembering my painful babtsitting story. you know, THE ONE where i decided to wash the vents out as well?? !!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Stuck in Vancouver rush hour traffic and feeling frustrated. Then I saw a Boler and it made me think of u and I felt happy. Then I saw the seat covers in the old truck pulling the Boler and boy would they make a good bag. I wonder if salvage yards would let you pilfer them for fabric?

Becky said...

When we came home last night, the washer (which we have to pay to use) in our appartment decided to rebel as well! I think it's a washer conspiracy! Our appartment got a little wet (we happen to be right beside the laundry room)...I think the lady on the other side got soaked, though:(

christine said...

i probably would have emptied my linen closet of all things warm and fuzzy and thrown them on the floor to suck up the water......akkk-how regrettable of an incident, yet how incredibly humorously written!!!
my (personal favorite) latest "household mess/drive me insane accident" involved (me) knocking a full, ( large) can of coffee grounds onto my kitchen floor right after kneeling and scrubbing the dickens out of it.
My mental status only improved after my kids decided to see if they sounded "crunchy" when stepped on......

Anonymous said...

Well, when things go wrong – they definitely go wrong! Upon returning from camping on September long weekend – after having to leave my husband in the hospital after having a heart attack on the Sunday (he is doing fine now by the way). On Tuesday night my washer bowl deciding to disconnect itself from the rest of the washer. So upon hearing a “clank clank clank” coming from the laundry room, I thought the load was maybe ‘unbalanced’. So moving the load around (trying to balance it), ignoring little rust flakes everywhere in the clothes, I proceeded to turn it on again. Well, once again the awful noise started, so I opened the lid again, and here is the wash bowl spinning a tune of its own! The first thing I thought was, “Just great – this is a man’s job…..but he is not here!”. Lucky for me though, my brother is at my place right now and he is an electrician (working in Winnipeg, he is from Brandon). So off to Weins I go the next day, get a great deal on a washer, they come and install it, but of course, it won’t fit where the other one was. So here, in my wisdom, I thought that removing the baseboard from the wall would give me enough room….of course I couldn’t take off that baseboard without removing all the other baseboards…oh well, that area needed cleaning as well. So after my son tried to jam the dryer and washer side my side, about a foot away from where they should be against the wall, well, needless to say, they got stuck. We couldn’t budge them at all. So when my brother arrived after a 12 hour shift, he managed to move the washer and dryer . So obviously now, I had to do a little rearranging. I was going to put my dryer against the far wall, so this is what we proceeding to do. Of course, the dryer ended up being hard-wired directly into the breaker downstairs, so you can only move it 2 feet. So off to Dyck’s we go to buy a dryer plug and a dryer receptacle. My lovely brother then wires my dryer appropriately so that we can move it around…we now have about 8 feet moving ability by the way. So in my joy of finally being able to move my dryer…..I tore the vent hose right off (not at the end, but in a middle part that you of course then have to buy a whole new one). So once again, off to Dyck’s we go. Now here is the killer part, we were going to replace it with the same type of hose, but then they said that if you do not get the aluminum one, you are not then insured in case of fire or something……..so check your dryers! By the way they also sell an aluminum tape (who knew!). When my lovely brother removed the vent hose from the part connected to the dryer – it was taped on by hockey sock tape!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, I don’t know if that is resistant to fire, but I doubt it! So, anyway, the job is now done, my washer works beautifully and my dryer does to! I just hope my dryer doesn’t break down any time soon…..or until hubby gets better! MK