H-Ohm Repair

It αll started Sunday afternoon.

The washing machine was on its third load of laundry but then refused to finish.

It would make this horrible clicking sound and then kind of sigh and shrug its shoulders like it didn't know what else to do.

It wouldn't drain. 

It wouldn't spin.

All it would do is attempt to complete its cycle and then blink cryptic light messages at me while I lock and unlock the lid.

Upon realizing its lack of fortitude and stamina to move forward with washing the load, I proceed to take a sopping wet uncentrifuged basket of towels and $2 in quarters down three floors and over two buildings to our on-site laundromat to finish what we started.

The joke here is that we actually had eight quarters in cold, hard cash.

The other joke here is that we thought we were pretty much done with this kind of machinery tomfoolery once we moved out of the house. The washer/dryer is the only appliance we use that is actually ours (besides computers and the `*~Kitchen Mama~*`) that could go wrong and so of course it must.

Later that night, St. Michael emptied out the water manually by taking the drainpipe from the wall, filling a bucket, putting the pipe back in the wall before it leaked too much, running the bucket to empty it in the tub, and back and forth and so on and so weiter.

When asked in an interview later of how many trips he had to take to empty it all out, he responded, "Too many to count. We have the smallest bucket of all time." 

Not in any hurry to fix the washer or call anybody about it, we do a little research and wisely wait until we feel like doing something about it on Thursday.

It could be a blocked drainpipe.

It could be the motor going bad.

It could be something we could fix ourselves.

We may need a new washer.

But then how would we even get rid of the old one?

Before we get too overwhelmed, Michael has divided this into two more manageable tasks:

Part I. Prepare the Patient for Surgery

We unhook the hoses and drain whatever was remaining. 

We move the washer out into the hallway and plug the un-drainable hole with a rag.

We tip the washer and gently lay the baby on its side so it does crush its hoses or die in the night. 

Then, suddenly!

The black hose was so low that the remaining putrid dregs dribbled out.

It smelled so bad you guys 

Like someone had moved a manhole cover    i  f     y  o  u     k  n  o  w     w  h  a  t    I    m  e  a  n

After cleaning up all the residual waste and hanging that towel out to dry, we decide that's enough for one night.

We guard the washer with the closet doors to ward off any mild acts of kittencraft in the night.

Wanted: Perpetrators of Kittencraft

Suspected guilty of "kneading" hot dog buns on the counter after dark

And then it's Friday night.

The Steve Kopman asks if we're going to the dance.

We are not because we have to fix a washing machine.

I make dill mashed potatoes and tilapia for dinner.

Ω-3 Fatty Acids

They improve brain function.

Let's go.

Part II. The Night of Surgery

We watch an instructional video on the medical procedure.

We look at all the pertinent details, like how many screws we need to extract, how many Ohms it's supposed to be running, and what kind of hat you should be wearing to do this kind of work.

Mike laments not having this kind of hat.

Then we get fast to work with Mike unscrewing from under the bottom of the machine.

I'm on Towel Duty, Standing By.

Soon, we would be able to either remove the clogged artery or test the heart for sufficient life force.

In Ohms.

ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ

After all the screws were out, Mike gets to pulling the motor off and sees a grey ball in the drainpipe. Is it cat hair? Is it lint? He has no idea and hands it to me.

IT'S MY SOCK. My little grey sock!

It's not so tiny to have fit through any of the holes, so it must have slipped between the baskets when I dumped it in there two loads ago.

People always blame the dryer for this, but only because it's the last part of the cycle. 
Nobody's counting their socks on the way from the washer to the dryer.
Perhaps you should look to the washer for your answers.
For there they might be lying.
In a drainpipe or somewhere.

A simultaneous victim and perpetrator

I guess it's true that we only found this one because he literally got caught.   

But if the sock had been able to fit through the drainage plumbing, 

who knows where it would've gone, 

ne'er to be found

without a trace 

nor broken appliance 

in its wake

Perhaps we have solved a great mystery that has been plaguing the collective conscious for sometime now. 

Always shame-blaming the dryer for taking the little sock that might have gone out with the bathwater.

We proceeded to pull out the good ol' multimeter and check the motor for resistance anyway to make sure it was still within the parameters that Mr. Hat told us about. 

The Multimeter had so many settings that Mike was flabbergasted at which section to flip to.

I kindly pointed to the Ω symbol and he was like "Ohm. My Gosh."

Ωygosh.

The motor was perfectly fine.

Its little wheel even resisted a little like it was supposed to.

We reassembled everything, carefully shimmied it back to the wall and ran a triumphant load of drain and spin:

free of worry

free of clog

free of leak

free of sock

And now our dryer is humming peacefully, drying our subsequent load of laundry (i.e. the towels and rags we used to clean this all up, plus a little grey sock. ;)

The dryer balls make it sound like a nice song with soft bongos, ping-pong circulating off the walls.

ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ

~~~~~~~~~~it's meditative~~~~~~~~~

Ω,

TWS