Her......

Due to certain delicate events having to do with elder care, my mom does a lot of laundry. A LOT of laundry. As in a complete bedding change every day, and sometimes more. In addition, I bring all my laundry there, since my septic is not up to the daily grind of...well, just about anything, but that's a different story. It all became too much for her old washer.

I mean, who can blame the poor old thing. It lived a happy, complacent life, meeting the needs of two childless retired school teachers. Then, in spite of years of faithful service it was left behind in the move, and, with no warning whatsoever, had to assume a gargantuan task of almost institutional proportions.

The first signs of a complete mental breakdown were subtle. It stopped spinning reliably, but my mom was able to jiggle the load sizes around so that it still worked. Then it started overflowing on certain load sizes because the water sensor was unreliable. Eventually it got to the point where you had to fill it on medium or it would overflow, but you'd better switch it back to high for the spin or the engine would burn up trying to spin a washer that wouldn't.

The proverbial last straw was reached at the end of December when the poor washer finally gave up completely. Feeling that life just wasn't worth living, it tried to drown itself. A veritable fountain of water poured from it and covered the floor of the laundry room....the carpeted laundry room. Thankfully, it was a fairly mild day---well above freezing---so we got busy with brooms and swept as much of the water outside as we could.

But it wasn't enough! Not nearly enough. The floor squished for days when you walked on it. And the washer, now shuddering and mumbling to itself things like, "NO! No more! Make it stop!" was banished into the cold to make room for----HER.


The beautiful, new High Efficiency General Electric Washer. With a glass lid so you can see it working. And the fancy, computerized instrument panel. And the large, stainless steel tub that fits twice as much as the old washer. If this were a movie, a choir would be singing right now.





Now, one ot the most popular shows at my parents' house is the washing machine in action; you can often find a group of people gathered about the lid, admiring the production.



But there is one thing this washer CAN't do, and that is to combat operator error. My mom has gotten on my case for years; she seems to feel I am a sad failure at laundry sorting because I often put fuzzy things like towels in where they hadn't oughta be. But I don't ever want to hear another word about my shortcomings as a laundress after ....well, see for yourself.

This is a photo of a beautiful berry-red tablecloth and my (formerly) white Battenburg lace tablecloth. Washed together. I don't really mind. It's a small price to pay for the freedom to explore my own laundry artistic expressions without commentary.