Death Of A Washing Machine

Death of a Washing Machine
After 25 years of faithful service, our old Maytag washing machine has gone to that Great Big Appliance Store In The Sky. In our 42 years of marriage, we've had 2 washing machines, both Maytag, and the first was a used model. So off we hopped to the local appliance places to price out new washers.

HOLY CATS! Both Carl and I are frugal but believe quality gives us a lot longer service than cheaply made things. But YIKES, the prices were enough to make me think maybe continuing to do the laundry by hand wouldn't be all that bad. Of course it cost us $50 ONE WEEK to send Carl to the laundromat with sheets, towels and blankets because I am too wimpy and old to wring
them out by hand any longer soooooo....

The first time we looked, I actually had to leave the store. Talk about sticker shock, yikes. Looked online, compared prices and things and decided another Maytag would suit us, so back to the store we crept, hoping that the prices were a joke or a misprint. They were neither.

The engineer in me started looking at each machine (Carl hid the prices). For the first time in all our married life and living with Maytag, the quality just wasn't there. The agitator wobbled around and was of a rather cheap feeling plastic. The case was a good, solid, heavy steel but the guts didn't pass any of my tests. But still, it was a brand we've lived with a long time, so I dithered over my decision. I fell in love with the Electrolux front loader in cobalt blue but no way, no how, noooooo nooooooooo noooooooooooo, I cannot bring myself to spend over $1,200 for
just the washer. Nope, can't do it. For one reason, we pay cash and do not have/want/use credit cards and it would take the better part of a year to save that much up, especially with him doing $50 a week at the laundromat.

Returned home without a new washer, again. More online research narrowed my choices down to four machines. I ruled out every machine with electronic heavy control panels. They usually go out first, about three millisecond after the guarantee expires and costs the most to repair. (IMExperience) We went to the Tifton, GA Lowes as the one in our home town leaves both of us
cold. The people at the Tifton store are great to work with and know what they are selling. If they don't have an answer, they will do everything they can to get the answer for us right then - even if all I am buying is a filter for the room ac. They also do not act as if they are doing us a huge favor by helping us or answering a question (which they never know the answer of.) One fellow in the paint department of the Albany store even refused to let us have the color of paint we wanted to do the house in - I guess he was the self-appointed Paint Police.

The young man in the appliance department steered me away from the really expensive units and told me exactly why he wouldn't feel good about selling us those. He also didn't talk down to me, which I really appreciated since most people selling tech stuff or appliances see an old lady and not someone who might actually know a little something about the advanced mechanics of washing machines, house construction and such. I narrowed my choices down to two units - both
GE, which shocked me because our last encounter with a GE appliance was extremely negative and went with the one with the least fancy schmancy controls, a huge 4.1 cubic foot stainless steel basket and no agitator. It even came with the hoses. (Cheapy plastic which we changed out before installation. ) It was $498, which was $200 less than was in the appliance budget, so I bought the new coffee grinder I've been lusting for and several Christmas presents, including a bright red, 6 quart crock pot.

Since there is precious little my husband cannot do, we carried it home and he had the old one out and the new washer in, hooked up and ready to go in about 30 minutes. It would have been shorter had the old washer not been full of frankly skanky nasty water that he had to bail out in order to move. I was absolutely no help since the smell made me sick and my stomach decided
I had to leave the room.

On super size, I was able to do 7 towels and 2 sets of queen size flannel sheets in ONE WASH. This washer takes a lot less water and electricity. Carl was out front looking at the water meter and I was watching the electric meter. It still has a few too many choices for my preference, but the manual controls are a lot more robust than electronic ones, IMExperience. It even did both of our large pillows without having indigestion or trying to walk across the floor. The pillows took under 40 minutes to dry, so I love the extra spin" cycle. But honestly, someone explain to me why I should actually want or use 23 wash settings? Good grief. Give me warm water wash, cold rinse, super heavy load, extra rinse and extra spin - keep all the other crap. Silk setting? They're kidding, right?

I suspect there is a Cosmic Law that states if one thing in the house dies, at least one other thing has to go kaput, and that happened here as well. I have a bit over one TB (terabyte) total of data on my 6 internal, one external drives in my computer. When I heard that dread noise which I know means a drive is on its last legs, I was not happy. Naturally it had to be the drive with the operating system on it and also naturally, since my sons had me convinced that I was crazy to have mirrored drives (which protects data well), I hadn't mirrored that drive.

DUMB. I should have listened to myself. So I started madly migrating data off of the wonky drive, but the other drives were slammed full with just a hundred or so KB of room on each. I spent hours burning DVD's filled with applications, documents and stuff, praying that the failing hard drive would hold on just a little longer. I keep my copy of Win XP pro in a lock box, (so it isn't turned into a kitty Frisbee, but couldn't find the key at first, of course. About the time Carl got back from Wal Mart with a small drive just for the OS, the drive had died with a heart-rending screeeeeeech. Didn't even get the blue screen of death, it just died.

Installed the new drive, praying that it would play nicely with the other drives, mobo, processor and RAM. Got a pulse, installed the operating system (Windows 2k pro is my preferred - tried the new thing, not impressed - too much junk) and started reinstalling dozens of programs and updates. I got to bed about 3 this morning, but everything was happy in computer land.

Made a huge pot of navy bean soup on Friday and put enough for our evening meal on Sunday in a pot, covering it with aluminum foil and the lid. Unfortunately for me, the dratted cats got the lid off and the foil didn't slow them down and they ate the whole quart of soup.

Also unfortunately it gave them gas. Ya'll really do not want to know what it is like living with two dozen farting cats. You really don't. As about ten of them insist on sleeping with us, I slept with the covers over my head One time I stuck my head out for air and to check the clock, I could swear there were mini atomic mushroom clouds all over the room. Linux ripped a
huge one and he jumped about a foot, ran around the room like a banshee was chasing him and glared at me from the top of the shelves - as if I had made him eat all that bean soup!

Other than all that, the weekend went fairly well.