Sunday, December 21, 2008

Pass the cheese

I am going to whine a little bit.

Last Sunday I did a marathon of laundry. About 4 or 5 hours in, I noticed water on the floor of the pantry. I interrogated questioned the children, and they claimed to know nothing about water there. "Hm," I thought. "Likely story." But I investigated anyway.

And I discovered a pretty significant amount of water on the floor of the laundry room as well.

Oh. Joy. This is probably the one time that I wish the urchins had been lying.

I thought it was the washer, so I asked a friend to come and take a look at it. Well, first I called Skeeter, who promptly left work to see what was up, and I went to buy a wet/dry vac so I could actually get the water off the floor. (Aside: that wet/dry vac that I bought in a panic absolutely rocks. I was just praying that it would be decent, since I didn't have time to actually look around, but it works really well.)

Skeeter and I got the crisis managed, and our friend came to look at the washer only to find that it wasn't the washer. It was the pipe in the wall that was leaking.

Great.

And it gets better. Apparently our homeowner's insurance policy doesn't cover plumbing.

Skeeter and I decided not to have someone come and rip the wall out 10 days before Christmas, so I have been making almost daily trips to the laundromat. That could be worse, I suppose, because it isn't far, and it is seldom busy. But it took me four loads to figure out how I could actually get the clothes clean. That's pretty pathetic, isn't it? But how was I supposed to know that the "single load" machines would only clean what would be half of a load in my washer?

I have started using the "triple load" which will clean what would be a single load for mine, plus a few extra. All for the bargain price of $3 per wash.

Thankfully the urchins see it as a bit of an adventure. We take a game and play for the 30 minutes that it takes to wash, then we pack it all up and head home to dry. The only problem with the "wash there, dry here" is that I can really only do two loads at a time. If I do more than that, I have piles of wet laundry waiting for a turn in the dryer.

I am trying not to whine too much because it could be far worse. But I will be so glad when I can use my washer again.


Noodle4

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooh, girl, I am feeling your pain! When I lived in the apartment, I had to take some of my bulkier items (comforters mostly) to the laundromat. I HATED IT.

Also, it really sucks to have that sort of problem arise just before Christmas. For us, it's the $4000 insurance deductible that begins December 1. Last week I spent $600 on prescription medicines... four of them. :-(

Vanessa said...

Oh crappy! Laundromat washers are the worst. In general I don't like laundromats. Creepy people fighting over a dryer and marking things with their laundry baskets and little cups of soap. Maybe it was just the one I frequented in Seattle, but I'm hoping for your sake the wall is a quick easy repair that happens soon.

smalltownme said...

I was thrilled to death when I got my first washer and didn't have to go to the laundromat where men sat drinking beer at 9 in the morning.

Good luck with the repair.

CelticBuffy said...

Different perspectives is all it takes, isn't it? The kids see it as an adventure, while the adults view it as a chore.

Hope you are able to get it fixed soon!

Anonymous said...

Ugh! That really stinks. I can't believe your home owners doesn't cover that. I probably need to go dig out my policy and see what it covers.

Saints and Spinners said...

Wow, tis the season for vital machines to break down. We had to deal with the washer issue 2 weeks ago, and three more friends (including you!) have done likewise. Furnaces have been having a hard time, too. I'm reminded of that science fiction story about the machines that become "liberated" by aliens. (It's called "Skirmish" by Clifford Simak).