Death of a Dryer

This weekend, our dryer went kerplunk. It continues to tumble clothes with all its might, but it no longer sucks in the propane to heat itself up. The dear hubs pulled the beast away from the wall and hopped down in the space behind it. He found himself standing in a gooey mess. And, I had a moment of recall..."Oh yeah! I remember a bottle of detergent that tipped over a couple years ago...gosh! I didn't know that much poured out. Wow. What a mess, eh?" Uh-hum. The hubs disassembled the thing and tinkered and tugged. And, for a few moments we had heat...and then again, there was none.

Well, we had plans to head to the hardware store anyway. With our tax return, we planned to buy a new barbecue because our current one is almost rusted through on the underside. And, we needed to buy some lumber to continue work on the kids' clubhouse (which is going to be a sight to behold). So, we added a dryer to the list. And, I told the hubs, we might as well get a pair since the washer has a tendency to spit oil on our clothes from time to time.

Armed with limited knowledge we headed to Lowe's. Good golly these things are expensive. We stuck our heads in machines made by Maytag, and Bosch, and Whirlpool, and Samsung (don't they make stereos?). Things clearly have changed since we bought our last set just over five years ago. Now everything is about energy savings and efficiency and water conservation. And, most everything loads from the front and sits on a stand. The stands cost extra (to the tune of $500 extra) so needless to say, we skipped those. I am not too good for a bit of back breaking laundry thank you very much! There were shockingly few dials...mostly buttons and a few with gauges. There were some with timed start delays. There were features for dry cleaning and washing silk and wool. There were some with a function labeled "sanitary." Shouldn't all loads come out in sanitary condition? I expect that when our washer and dryer arrive the instruction book will look something like an encyclopedia.

We settled on a middle-of-the-road set that has "sport" in the name. It can wash up to 12 pairs of jeans at once which should really be like 24 pairs of kids pants right? We do a lot of washing around here so anything that can compound the loads is cool in my book. And, I am hoping the set arrives soon because we are going hillbilly with the dear hubs' boxers drying in the back yard right now. We were told our new washer and dryer will be delivered on Thursday and, with all its nifty features, I expect it will make us dinner that night too...maybe something on the barbecue.