Facing off with the "wheel of death"

My current washer and dryer.

Working at Los Alamos Monitor newspaper, we used Apple computers, which proved to be temperamental machines. The computers had a habit of stalling or crashing and when that happened, a colored spinner would appear and would never disappear. That twirling circle of rainbow colors got a lot of nicknames in the office but I personally referred to it as the "wheel of death." You could forget about any program you had opened-all you could do was force the computer to shut down and then reboot to start again.

It's been awhile since I've dealt with the "wheel of death" but it seems to have transformed itself into my washing machine.

I have always harbored a suspicion towards the appliance. When I first moved in to my house and did my first loads of laundry, I would stare at the clear lid and wonder why nothing was happening. The power was on, the settings were chosen and all the right lights on the control panel were lit; the machine was poised and ready to go yet nothing happened. The drum would sometimes swish back and forth but that was it. Then, suddenly, I would hear a loud click and the machine would roar into action.

It went on like this for a while until a few weekends ago when the washer became really temperamental. It may have shuffled into action in the past but now it would emit a terrible grinding noise to show its reluctance to do work. I imagined somewhere inside the washer, completely hidden from view, its teeth were clenched and dragging against one another.

The darn, irritable washer must have rubbed its teeth to the nubs because it didn't make a sound when I gave the machine its last load of laundry. Unfortunately, it wouldn't do much of anything. It crashed, stalled. No matter what setting the dial pointed to: rinse, spin, quick wash, the machine would just slosh the clothes around in a soapy puddle.  I stared perplexed at my sopping wet clothing being twirled in an endless circular motion. It was the "wheel of death" all over again. The only thing to do was to flip the switch.

So I did. I spread an old beach towel on the floor and fished my clothing out piece by piece to ring out water before tossing the drenched stuff into the dryer.

Then, grabbing a Tupperware bin and drinking glass, I scooped out that soapy puddle resting in the washer's drum before emptying the contents in the bathroom sink. My own teeth felt rather clenched during this whole ordeal. It wasn't supposed to be like this anymore. When I went house hunting, one of my biggest objectives was to have a washer and dryer. I felt so privileged and grown-up having these appliances. Now it is back to hauling dirty laundry into my car and driving to my parents' house to use their machine; although that is certainly far nicer and cheaper than taking it to a laundry mat. I really shouldn't be complaining. There's is nothing to do but reboot and start again. I'll be looking at replacement washing machines tomorrow and hopefully will find one that does not include a "wheel of death" as one of its features.

No more 'wheel of death'! The new washer has arrived!