Hot Laundry

I was doing laundry the other day. I am a stay-at-home mom and, although I don’t entirely include laundry in my job description, I do seem to be the most logical person to do it. After all, I am within several yards of the laundry room more often than any other adult in my house. Yes, I do laundry.

Where was I? I was doing laundry.

Did I mention that I wasn’t just doing a little bit, but I was doing a whole houseful of laundry before taking five relatively messy humans on a long trip? Oh, and I had decided it would be a reasonable time, since I was doing laundry, to wash all the sheets as well. And, I needed to sort socks. We have upwards of 80 pairs of socks in the house; none of them match. It was driving me crazy.

The dryer reached at least 350 degrees. I could have fried a steak on my dryer (I wish I had thought of it at the time, I could have made dinner as well).

I left. I came back. Surely, I thought, this thing will cool off. Surely, other housewives do this much laundry. Do people really just do one load a day? It was still hot. Then, I couldn’t help it.

I took it apart.

I was a little frustrated, I guess, but more importantly, it just seemed like the right thing to do. My kids watched. It was full of lint (surprised I didn’t find any socks, or even shoes) so I got the vacuum. My kids watched. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the vacuum started to get really hot. It slowed down. My dryer was overcoming my vacuum. I couldn’t let the dryer win this easily. I turned off the vacuum.

And, I took it apart.

The beater brush was full of threads. Every tube was full of dust. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I have a shop vac in my garage. I pulled it out. I was going to vacuum my vacuum. Yes, I really was, except the shop vac wasn’t pulling a vacuum.

Yes, I took it apart.

This time, though, I didn’t need a screwdriver. I found the sock in the hose: of course, a sock.

I vacuumed my vacuum. I vacuumed my dryer. The kids watched.

Just as I was ready to put the dryer back together, my husband walked in from work.

“Honey?”

“I’m in the laundry room,” I called.

He saw the shop vac (now fixed), the vacuum, about a quart of lint on the floor and his wife with a set of screwdrivers, working on the dryer.

“What are you doing honey?”

“Turning you on.”