and boy are my arms tired

I have really absorbent clothing.

I'll tell you how I know that in a minute.

First, let me tell you about what happened a few weeks ago. I had a gift card from RC Willey for $26.31. They mailed it to me to "thank" me for purchasing a dining set there. Wow. What the heck can you buy at RC Willey for $26.31? I'll tell you: two little red trays (gifts for my girls), a candle (pomegranate scented), and a purple blanket. Okay, not exactly $26.31 - you have to pay an extra $.29, but so what. All these treasures were found at the back of the maze of that place, in the clearance section (except the candle - who decided the prices for candles? it's a scandal...).

Since the blanket had been on clearance (and everything that goes along with it, ie, opened, fondled, whathaveyou), I set out to wash it first thing. I read the care instructions (as I always do - really. With everything that I wash) and it said to hand wash and either line dry or tumble dry low. Well, pardon me, but that blanket was too soft and too big and too wonderfully purple for me to consider hand-washing; I wanted to use it right away. So I did a delicate cycle with Woolite. When the washer was finished spinning, I opened the lid to see that huge chunks of the blanket had been spun off. I'm not talking about little flecks of lint - chunks. Still, the blanket was intact, so I threw it in the dryer (after cleaning the lint screen, of course, which I always do - really.) on low heat with a fabric softener sheet. I couldn't wait for the dryer to finish and then cuddle up with my newest blanket. I opened the dryer door and found...a wet blanket. Uh-oh. More chunks. I cleaned the lint screen, which was saturated with soft, fluffy purple. I tried another dry cycle, which left the blanket, again, warm but more-than-damp.

Crap.

I went outside to tell Darin that our dryer was broken or clogged or somesuch. He was talking with the two neighbors that we're sandwiched between, one of which is an electrician. Electrician groaned when Darin turned to ask him a question. (I don't like bothering people I know for stuff - I'm almost always more comfortable hiring a stranger - why is that??) I then realized that in the 3 years that we've lived in this house, we hadn't had the vents/ducts cleaned. Not-Electrician Neighbor said that I could call a duct-cleaning service and they'd send a guy out and it would only cost like twenty bucks.

Try sixty.

And it didn't fix the problem. The vent was clean, but upon further inspection, the dryer itself wasn't putting out any air to get to the vent. Darin ended up taking the back of our dryer off the next night, and yanked out about 3 pounds of stuff, mainly pretty purple lint.

My point in telling you this story is that the night my dryer didn't work for the blanket, I ended up taking all my laundry to the laundromat. I was afraid that my dryer was dead, and, more importantly, li'l ~j. needed clean uniform clothes, even though it was only the last week of school. So I carried all of our dirty laundry to that place by Cafe Rio and in a few short hours, it was all finished. All done, and the bonus is that our dryer wasn't broken after all.

Fast forward to two days ago.

The nice thing about having church at 1:pm is that, incase you forgot to get clothes ready on SaturdayIsASpecialDay, you have time in the morning to do a few loads of laundry. (That's the only nice thing, by the way.) And so I first did a load of towels (have I told you that all I've done this summer so far, it seems, is wash towels? I love the swimming season), and then a load which included the dress and tights that Curly really wanted to wear.

Waiting for the towels to dry, I went into the laundry room to see how much time I had to wait.

That's when I smelled it.

Like fire, but I could see no smoke. I opened the dryer and took a whif. Nothing but clean towel goodness. What the...?? Could it be our air conditioner? Had we been running it too much? I left the room, thinking maybe I had imagined it. After about ten minutes, I went back. The smell was worse. I moved the dryer around and couldn't figure out where the smell could be coming from. Not long after that, li'l ~j. told me she smelled fire, and Darin was in the laundry room inspecting the dryer. We could not figure this out.

Once the towels were finished drying, I proceeded to put the second load into the dryer. I opened the washer.

BLECH!!

That's where the smell was coming from.

The washer was filled with water and a nasty smell. I turned the washer off and unplugged it. I figured out that the smell had come from the motor trying to run, but something was stopping it. I was talking to my dad on the phone at this time and he suggested that perhaps a bearing had come loose or somesuch. I ignored it for as long as I could, which ended up being until yesterday afternoon. (We really go through a lot of towels.)

I got all of the laundry ready and had Darin load it into the van, along with the detergents and such. But that left one more load that I had to get.

And that's why my arms were tired. And how I know that I have absorbent clothes.

Imagine: a washing machine filled with water and clothes. I did plug it back in to try to spin it out (for a millisecond before I heard a rattle - guess my dad was right), but ended up removing each piece of clothing and wringing it out so that I could take it to the laundromat. The worst ones were Superstar's terrycloth swimming robe and a pair of my pants.

It was a sweaty two hours at the laundromat, filled with Univision (have you ever seen Cristina? It's a spanish Maury or something, and it's vile - there was a guy from Salt Lake City on there talking about how he has always known he was a homosexual but his church made him go on a mission and then get married to a girl to 'cure' him and he broke his wife's heart and now he has two boyfriends and they all share a bed. He actually said, "Well, it's a big bed." Tool.). I remember once hearing Marie Osmond (who, for your FYI, I classify with Oprah, so you know what that means, except Marie's not all up in my face all the time like Oprah) say that sometimes she has her kids load up suitcases and they go to a laundromat and get it all done and the kids think it's a blast. Now, I don't think I'll be bringing my kids with my any time soon or ever, but I really like getting it all done at once. Still, though, I'd like to know the fate of my washing machine. We've had it for 6 &1/2 years. Is it time for a new one? What's the timeline on when to get a new appliance?

BONUS: Afterwards, I went to Pudding On The Rice, and I got some of their Vanilla Rice, Rice Baby to take home. Yum. That was my reward. Even though I just called it Vanilla because I don't like them calling it Vanilla Rice, Rice Baby.