Or possibly just “Plague”, depending on your feeling towards the definite article.
Saturday morning, I go down to the basement to commence dog washing. One dog was mine, because she was smelling somewhat akin to a Frito®. Another dog was one I was getting paid for. She smell a far sight worse than a Frito®, but I won’t go into that now. It’s pretty gross and you don’t want to know.
So, I’m at the stationary tub, getting the water to temperature (not too hot, not too cold, just right- I gave them baths in porridge) and I notice the washing machine hose has an ugly buboe on it.
Do you know what a stationary tub is? I wouldn’t want that to be preying on your mind while I’m telling you about my washing machine having the Plague (or just “Plague” if you prefer). It’s the big plastic sink (Although both my brother and my neighbor have a concrete one. At least my brother hada concrete one. It had a leak in it, so he smashed it up with a sledge hammer (after trying to fix the leak) and got a plastic one. My neighbor still has his concrete one.) that’s hooked up to the washing machine water lines and drains out the washing machine drain. You can get them at Lowe’s if you want.
I noticed my washing machine water hose had a buboe on it. Right where the rubber hose connects to the metal twisty-on thing that hooks it up to the water valve. (Or “tube” if you’re English. No, that’s not right. Radio tubes were called “valves”, but I don’t think it went the other way. It’s probably really something funny like “stop cock” or “bung wiggler” or something.) Since it was a great, black buboe in the water line, that meant my washing machine had the Plague. Black Death. The Bubonic Plague that killed up to two thirds of all the major appliances (like washers and dryers and stoves and dehumidifiers) in Europe in the early 1330’s. I was a bit taken aback, I must tell you.
So I threw myself into action. By “threw myself into action”, I mean I washed both dogs and asked the Little Woman if there was anything she needed while I was going out and then started a list (Because me going shopping without a list is just askingfor trouble. Say I needed light bulbs and clothesline and some taffy. With out a list I’d come home with the giant sized tub of beef jerky and whipped cream. With my list I’d come home with the giant sized tub of beef jerky and whipped cream andlight bulbs and clothesline and some taffy (depending where I went shopping).) Then I figured I ought to measure the washing machine water hose. I had to make sure I got the right length. I vaguely remembered something about needing special washing machine hoses when we moved in. Then I figured I should check the other water hose to see if I should replace that too. Then I figured since I got both the water hoses at the same time and one is not right, the other should be replaced too. (As it turned out, the other hose had a buboe too, so I needed a new hose anyway.) Then I got some lunch. Then I fed the dogs. Then I headed out to the hardware store. But before I got all the way to the car I remembered that there should be a rubber washer in the hose when you hook it up and I didn’t know if the new hoses came with the washer or not but I thought I bought a mess of them one time so I had to go back and check around to see if I had any of the rubber washer things (I did) in case the hoses didn’t come with their own (they did). Then I headed out to the hardware store again.
After wandering up and down the “Plumbing” aisle a couple of times I stumbled upon the replacement washing machine hoses. I needed a 12 foot one, because some genius figured it was a good idea to put the spot for the washing machine waaaaay far (about 12 feet) from the actual water hook-up. It could have been closer, but then there wouldn’t be any room for the stationary tub. I had my choice of a number of different lengths of water hoses. That number would be “2”. I could get 4 foot hoses and I could get 6 foot hoses. Lucky for me I couldn’t get 12 foot hoses the last time either, so I had the metal linky thing for two short hoses to be made into one longer hose. I wound up getting four 6 foot hoses rather than six 4 foot hoses because I only had two linky things and it was cheaper that way.
When I get home, I grab my tools and commence the hose transplant. Everything went quite smoothly, since I had all the proper tools (a pair of pliers) and supplies. (Plus tarp clips. They weren’t on the list, but they (the hardware store (Lowe’s)) had a bucket of them for 49¢ each, and since you never know when you’ll need tarp clips, I got some.) By “quite smoothly” I mean I didn’t flood the basement (I actually remembered to turn the water off first) and I only had to screw the hoses on twice each. (The first time went on fine, then I saw the rubber washer thing sitting right where I put it so it wouldn’t forget to stick it in the hose, so I had to take it off and do it again. Since there were four hoses and two ends each, that was eight times I screwed the hoses together. The last hose I remembered to put the washer in, but I was already in the habit of doing it all twice and I couldn’t remember if I remembered in the first place or not, so I had to unscrew it and check. Yup, there was the washer.)
After I got the washer all sorted out, I figured I should go and change out the exhaust hose on the drier. Just so the drier didn’t feel left out. You don’t want your appliances to feel left out, they’ll just act up to get attention. (Like kids, only the repair guy charges more to come out and fix 'em.) So I changed the vent on the drier. The good news is I don’t have to buy any extra supplies for this little task. I was going to change the vent ever since we moved into the house (along with getting rid of all those derned paint cans down there in the basement). So I had all the stuff. Now it was time to just do it.
So I did.
No loss of life was reported.
-Rue.
