Friday, October 9, 2009

A Death in the Family!

With all of the confusion of the Chicago trip, trying to arrange with a third party to get the title notarized, when he claims Illinois doesn't require it, while Arizona does, I completely forgot to celebrate today's anniversary. Today, 17 years ago, I closed on this house. I think it was a young man that handed over the down payment to some disinterested lady that was my closing coach. Sign here, here, and here, press hard, 5 copies. Do you have the check, "what, oh here!" I walked out of there a marked man. I was now to be the "HOMEOWNER"! The gentleman of the house as the telephone solicitors referred to it. When kids rang the bell asking for money for a Girl Scout Cookies, I was the man they were looking for. On Halloween, I was the guy with the candy. I was the "Gentleman of the House". I was a young man about 46. That's young when you're 63, trust me.
One of the things that happened almost immediately after moving in here, was my avocado washing machine took a crap and died. My son Brad and I went to Barry's Home Appliances and picked out a brand new one. I truly believe that the old one committed suicide because of it's color and it felt kind of out of place in the new digs. For that I will always be grateful. The new sparkling white one took it's place proudly.
Tonight is a banner night. That new white washing machine served us well for all of these years. She went through one wife and several girlfriends and never once complained and frankly, all of those women were not necessarily nice to "Whitey"...
Several months ago, Whitey started complaining. Her spin cycle got kind of loud. She screamed for attention, but I just yelled, "suck it up" we've all got problems. I ignored her warnings. Recently she got so loud you couldn't hear the TV playing and I still chose to ignore her. I just yelled "It's your bearings, you'll be fine"... She continued. Two weeks ago was the last time I bothered her with a load of laundry. She was slow starting and just screamed during her spin cycle. I turned the TV louder to ignore her. She finished and went right to sleep.
Tonight, needing clean underwear and jeans, I loaded her up, turned up her water level to "high"and pressed the ON button. Her agitator moved s-l-o-w-l-y and I asked her, what's wrong? She said nothing and her agitator stopped dead and the only thing I noticed was a constant hum coming from her motor and a steady stream of water coming out from under her overweight body...... Whitey was DEAD! Where do you bury a 150 LB washing machine?
I quickly ran for a bucket and some towels. I grabbed a big plastic cup and started baling out water as fast as I could. I had to stop that water before it hit the carpeting. Come on, we've all been there. I ran out to the garage and got my syphon, but only a kid stealing gasoline could ever make one work! Jeez...
As I sit here, I have about a hundred pounds of slushy dirty clothes in my drying just rolling along. I guess tomorrow I'll go washer shopping.

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