High and Dry

The week before Luke's birthday party, McMoose and I had a TON of work to do to (a) get the apartment presentable and (b) get all the food and supplies ready for the party. So of course, chores that didn't contribute to one of the above two goals got postponed. Chores, for example, like the laundry. Now we generate a fair bit of laundry each week, what with the baby clothes and the adult clothes and the bathroom mats that the cats often pee on and the diapers, so even under the best of circumstances, it usually results in about 4 loads per week and it can be hard to keep up with it. So last Monday, after all our guests had left, I was so looking forward to spending a good two days taking care of all the laundry for the past week, as well as the sheets and towels that the guests had used and the new clothes that Luke had gotten for his birthday. I started, as usual, with a load of diapers.

I should mention here that when we got our washer and dryer, we picked out the cheapest ones that money could buy because I was in grad school, working at a daycare, and routinely neglecting to buy groceries in favor of paying the electric bill and McMoose had JUST started working at IBM full time. And at the time, we weren't living together so we were paying rent and utilities on TWO apartments (one of which was used largely as a storage area) and McMoose had to pretty much feed himself, me, the Dog and both cats.

As it turns out, the cheapest dryer that money can buy usually isn't so great at actually drying clothes, so it usually took a good two hours to do the diapers and at least three to do everything else. So I put in the diapers. One hour later, they were still soaked. Two hours later, they were still soaked. Three hours later, they were not quite soaked, but still really, really damp. Four hours later...are you getting the idea here? Apparently, the heating element had decided that it hated its job and it no longer wished to heat things up. You can imagine my sheer panic when we figured out that this wasn't going to be a quick or easy fix because dude! We had AN ENTIRE CLOSET full of dirty clothes! Dirty clothes were TAKING OVER THE WHOLE WORLD! Pretty soon, they would BLOCK OUT THE SUN and then, human civilization WOULD BE OVER! All because I had put off the laundry for a week.

Luckily, we were able to manage for a week because (a) we used the apartment complex laundromat for one load of must-haves, (b) we re-used a lot of pants, (c) I don't even want to TALK about underwear, and (d) we hung up a load of diapers on every hang-able surface in the apartment. And bright and early this morning, our NEW DRYER got here. *Insert joyous celebration here!* People, our new dryer has lights and music and a bazillion different settings and a sensor that stops it if the clothes are dry so you don't waste energy and the thing that I'm most excited about: a CHILD LOCK. So Luke can push all the buttons he wants without messing with the settings. Is it possible to be in love with an appliance? Because I totally think I'm falling for this dryer. (I shall call him Moe.)