Washing Machine Fiasco

Okay, I have been doing my own laundry for almost 20 years now. You would think I would have the hang of it. *sigh*

I got the bright idea the other day to wash ALL of the bedding in the house. I stripped the kids’ beds, and our bed. Everything was going along fine until I decided to wash the pillow-top thing on our mattress. I’m sure you all have seen these things. It’s almost like like a big down comforter on top of your mattress. Or as I like to say, it’s like sleeping on a cloud. Or at least it is for a little while.

After you sleep on the pillow top, it flattens out after awhile. There’s really nothing sadder than sleeping on a flattened out cloud, now is there? Well, maybe a broken down Gigi is sadder, but that’s another story entirely.

I got the bright idea that I could fluff the pillow topper back up if I washed it and dried it in the dryer. I looked at the tag and it said, “machine washable and tumble dry.” At least, that is what I read. Eric later pointed out that it said “front-load washing machines only.” WTF? To me, that means machine-washable. I didn’t quite see what the hell the difference was.

I drug my pillow-topper downstairs and began stuffing it in my top-loading washing machine. The fact that shoving it in there was such an ordeal should have really been a sign.

Once I got that mother in there, I started the machine and went back upstairs. After the cycle ran, I went down to move it to the dryer. I opened up the washing machine, and started trying to pull it out. I pulled and pulled and yanked and yanked and huffed and puffed, then took a break, and yanked some more. The damn thing did not freaking budge.

To say it was stuck would be an understatement. Apparently, it had wound itself around the agitator thing and gotten wedged underneath the agitator. It was jammed. I guess that’s the reason it was “front load only” as Eric would seethingly tell me later.

After working on trying to get that damn thing out for an hour and breaking two nails in the process, I finally gave up. I called Eric at work. I didn’t even go into what happened, I just started out with, “I think we need a new washer.” To which he replied, “What did you do?”

I was utterly offended. “Well, what do you mean what did I do?! What makes you think I did something?!”

Silence.

“Okay, fine,” I said. “I broke the damn washing machine.”

I explained the situation, and basically got a lot of loud sighs in response. When Eric got home, he went downstairs to assess the damage. After he worked on it for about an hour, he actually managed to get the damn thing out. Then I immediately stuffed in the dryer.

There was no agitator in there, so I was safe. It took about five hours to dry the damn thing, but at least it was clean. It did seem extremely lumpy, but that’s beside the point.

Unfortunately, even though we got the pillow topper out of the washing machine, I really do think it screwed up the agitator. Does anyone remember when you had to put chains on your tires when it snowed? Remember the sound they made when driving? Okay, that’s the sound my washing machine makes now.

My husband is Not. Happy. But I’m trying to stay optimistic. You may soon be reading a post about my brand new washing machine!