She of unusual, appliance-related fame

You can probably remember that we've had some issues with our appliances.

Yup. You recall that little incident with the washing machine. You know, when it went up in flames.

And what became of that incident exactly?

Well, I'm currently the leading funny anecdote in the ever-so-happening washing-machine repairs circle. I am, in all my glory, considered the most oblivious person in the history of washing clothes.

I know, just one more thing for that epic letterhead. An unforeseen bonus.

Only washing clothes, however. The honor of being the most oblivious person in the history of drying clothes will always be reserved for that Italian guy who I met in a hostel in Washington DC in the late 90s. He'd never done laundry before in his life, so after figuring out what would be the logical way of performing such a high tech task, went about trying to dry his clothes by placing one article at a time in the tumble drier and drizzling said article with plenty of detergent.

His mama had taken care of him until then. Poor boy.

Why do I deserve the first honor then? Surely as a capable homemaker (stop laughing all of you, you are hurting my feelings!) I should know better than to drizzle anything where it doesn't belong.

And as fate would have it there had been no unwarranted drizzling. However, apparently, I was able to use (read: ignore loud noise, smoke, and many other scary things the machine was doing, like projectile vomiting and hovering above the bed) a washing machine which had come out of the factory faulty to begin with for 8 whole months.

8 whole months.

Turns out the drum wasn't at all bolted securely to the rest of the machine as the three bolts needed for the task were completely missing, causing the drum to attempt to exit the confines of its shell through the sides, the bottom, the back, the front, and the top of the machine. And that kind of friction apparently leads to fire. Big fire. With flames and all.

Basic physics. Or is it chemistry? What does friction fall under anyway? Sex education? Menopause?

"I can't wait to tell the guys at the office. They'll never believe this. Never seen anything like this in my twenty years of repairing these machines," was the reassuring sentiment I was able extract from the fella sent to assess the damage.

Imagine how good I feel about myself as a homemaker? Oh, right, that's why I fall under 'trophy wife' instead.

But why am I reminiscing about a fire in my kitchen (Actual, not the dirty kind. Or is it just me, who sees a world of suggestion in the above? Okay. Just me then.)?

I am remembering the above episode, because of the fridge. Which has been on its deathbed for months now. It has groaned, screamed, sighed, and nearly died on me on several occasions. At one point, I swear, it looked at me pleadingly with puppy-dog eyes, and begged me to pull the plug, to put it out of its misery, to finally let it go where others have gone before. Into that good night.

But I couldn't bring myself to euthanize it. It was, after all, holding vast amounts of ostrich meat at the time. And that stuff is pricy.

I (okay. So the Hubs has. What of it?) have called in a repair guy.

And, rather miraculously, the fridge has now suddenly mended its ways and not rattled, sighed, screamed or anything since the call.

There better be something wrong with it, because I refuse to garner anymore dubious fame amongst the exciting (and potentially intermingling, oh the horror) crowds of appliance repairs. Unless money is involved, in which case I'm game. I could do precautionary tales at conventions?

Damn you attention deprived fridge. If you're too sick to go to school, then you're too sick to be watching television.

In the replaceable memory of

Washing Machine

December 2008- August 2009

He never had a chance

but he tried his hardest.