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You know how you see a corner of your laundry room closet and you think, That’s really gross. I should probably clean that. And then you move the dryer and the funk is so much grosser than you could have imagined?
Yeah. That.
Since buying our house in August of 2006, we’ve written a few checks for appliance repairs. Realizing at 5pm on a Sunday an hour before you’re due to volunteer at a fundraising event that your hot water heater is broken is always fun. (Note: the only thing more white trash than having a busted hot water heater on your front deck is maybe the people with a toilet in their yard a few blocks over. Except our busted water heater was only on the deck for a couple days and their toilet appears to be “yard art” so we win).
Last summer we had an oil leak in the washing machine, and the day the repair guy was scheduled to come over, I realized the fridge was unseasonably warm, and wouldn’t you know? The fan sensor had crapped out. Also fun.
Most recently, our dryer, while technically not broken, doesn’t shut off when the clothes are dry. It will cost about $125 for the replacement part, and since I’d rather buy groceries and diapers than a part for the dryer that technically still works, I try to remember to check the dryer to make sure it’s not running long and jacking up the electricity bill and/or becoming a fire hazard. Yes, I’m sure over time, we’ll have spent over $125 in extra electricity charges. Shut up.
Fast forward to last Friday night. I check the laundry and realize it’s really moist in there. Way too moist. I call Adam over, he pulls the dryer out from the wall, and produces a dryer vent so mangled that even poor folk such as ourselves wouldn’t reattach it. Lucky for us, we happened to have an extra dryer vent in our garage. Doesn’t everybody keep extra dryer vents in their garage JUST IN CASE?
To properly attach the new vent, Adam says he needs to go under the house, which he can’t do because the crawl space opening is in Ellis’ room (yes, the hatch is safely secured from the 2 year old. duh). Friday night or no Friday night, if your dryer was pulled out, wouldn’t you take the opportunity to clean that which never sees the light of day?
Enter last summer’s washing machine oil leak. When the appliance repair guy fixed the washer, he cleaned underneath it, but the oil of course spread further than he was obligated to clean.
So I spent my Friday night wiping up oil soaked lint from 25 year old linoleum in my jammies.
It’s nothing but glamor around here, no?
But it’s okay because I made brownies. 
