Breaking Up and Breaking Down

Our washing machine is breaking down. It hasn’t broken completely yet, but it is in the process. You can turn it on, but it won’t run a full cycle. I’m having a hard time dealing with this.

Everyone knows of my love/hate relationship with laundry (See The Great Laundry Crisis of 2008). My relationship with laundry is a lot like marriage, actually. In the beginning, when I was just starting out on my own in college, it was fun – even exciting – to do my own laundry. I would spend hours in the laundry detergent aisle of Walmart picking just the right combination of detergent and fabric softener. I saw my friends get dressed up to go down to the laundry mat once a week and do their laundry with whatever machine was available and I silently gave thanks for my washing machine that I could spend quality one-on-one time with. I loved sharing my Sunday afternoons with my laundry machine and a good movie. But then I got married.

Now, laundry is just another chore. Another something to be done. And, over time, my machine has just let itself go. No longer does it sit in my apartment with Victoria Secret Delicates detergent on top of it, always available to me, always clean, always ready to go. Now, it is in my basement, dirty with lint and old fabric softener sheets and covered with generic 10 gallon jugs of detergent from Sam’s Club. It has just lost all of its shine. The fact that it now has chosen to give up completely is just, well, hurtful. And it won’t even break down to my face. It does it slowly and painfully, pretending to start a load and then just giving up in the middle. Its just toying with me.

If my laundry machine doesn’t want to make the effort in this relationship to even finish a load, then maybe its time to just pull the plug. There are lots of new models out there on the market now – young, bright, energy efficient models just waiting to come home with me.

But I’m nervous. Making the decision to get new washing machine is so intense. What happens if I don’t find a perfect new machine right away? Am I going to be forced to go to the laundry mat every Thursday night like my non-committal college friends and throw my change at any old machine that’s available? I’m just not ready for that lifestyle yet.

So, for now, I’ll stand by my machine. We’ve had too many good years to just kick it to the curb. But I think its time we brought a professional into this relationship. Tomorrow we’re seeing a repairman.