Ugh

The dryer quit working yesterday, Thanksgiving morning. It was working the night before and I had thought to run it for a few minutes just to take the chill off clothes left in the dryer overnight. No go. I'd had the repair fellow here last week and he said that everything seemed to be working perfectly, but if the timing mechanism failed, well, no one makes them anymore and Black Friday is coming sooooo... Granted the machine is 45 years old. It came with the house from Sears Roebuck & Company, back when their household appliances were synonymous with quality. I spend several hours online researching new electric dryers. Ugh. I guess replacing the corroded kitchen faucet is going to have to wait.

I'm trying to clear the dishes out of the sink. I have a double enamel sink with a granite speckle pattern that's rusting at the edges. Neither basin is draining. Ugh. The sink is clogged. On Thanksgiving Day. I'm so glad we're not hosting this year! I'm hoping the soapy, greasy water descends enough for me to pour some drain cleaner in it, chased with a pot of boiling water. Eventually this is just what happens. Later next week, I'll have to call Electric Snake. (Everyone I've spoken to agrees that Roto-Rooter hires and trains incompetent people. Everyone swears by Electric Snake, a local company.) I'm pretty sure all the grease I keep trying to keep out of my drain has accumulated enough to clog the pipes, like a heart attack waiting to happen.

Meanwhile, I am online researching electric dryers. I still have an account with Consumer Reports but I'm not happy with them. My mother used to trust them implicitly. I've become disillusioned with them, especially when they instituted a stealth automatic renewal policy for their online subscription. You have to jump through hoops and barrel rolls to opt out of that. But the worst thing about this organization is that you can't trust their reviews. Every top-rated best buy recommendation is suspect because once you opt to purchase the item, you get to read actual user reviews from sellers like Amazon, Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy, etc. I don't trust any item that has under a dozen reviewers. But an item with thousands of reviews is hard to ignore. And those experiences are completely different from the glowing reviews of the lab controlled testing facilities at CR. Or, at least that's how it appears.

I finally settle on an electric dryer at Home Depot, foregoing bells and whistles. I just want something that's going to dry my clothes! The dryer I select is reasonably priced with good reviews. Then I realize that I have to measure the space the dryer sits in with the door open. Ugh. Our laundry room is a portion of the kitchen separated by louver doors. The wall juts out a few inches for the bi-folds to attach, and that limits the space of a pull down dryer door. I look for a dryer like my current one, with a shorter door length, or one that hinges to the side. The door doesn't need to be fully open to get clothes in and out. I find another suitable dryer but they're sold out in my area. Ugh. Eventually I find a Maytag with a reasonable price tag and a 10-year limited parts warranty.

Twice I have to access the chat service to ask questions about the installation, since I'm not at all handy and chances are 100% my hubs will be at work in another city. Installers will not reuse the vent duct or the power cord so those have to be purchased new. The second time, the service rep asks if he can temporarily install a cool new tool that allows him to take control of my laptop to show me where the installation options are in the check out process. I'm a little wary of this, but since I'm getting a bit frustrated and I've already spent enough time on this quest, I say Sure... 30 seconds later and he's clicked on the appropriate windows. (I had a good experience buying an Anderson storm door and getting it installed from HD a few years ago so I'm relieved that HD will do the dryer installation. In comparison, I've heard terrible things about Amazon installations.) Great. I can also get HD to haul away my old dryer for an additional $20, which is well worth it, considering I still have the remnants of our old generator sitting next to our new one, because I have no way of getting rid of that.

The new dryer is scheduled to be delivered and installed next Wednesday. Which means I have no means to do laundry unless I want to trek into town to a laundromat. Uh, pass. This severely limits my wanting to get dirty, even though I have plenty of workout clothes. Which means I might not be posting anything until next week. I know the washing machine will need to be replaced eventually. Its timing mechanism is busted and not replaceable or reparable. We get around it by using two different settings to get a load done. But eventually that will fail too. Ugh. This is my 3rd washer. They don't last as long as dryers, and I don't need it to be controlled by my phone or any other device. My house is not a smart house. But that's the way I like it.