This is the way we wash our clothes

 

This is the way we wash our clothes 

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This is the way we wash our clothes, early Monday morning. Mid-cycle, my washing machine quit working. I mean quit. Dead in the water. I mean, dead, full of water and soggy clothes.

The machine gave up, quit, somewhere in rinse cycle. So I had to swish and wring the entire soggy mess out by hand and pin everything on the line, slightly drippy. I knew the clothing would dry quickly, afternoons hang out in the high 80s or lower 90s these days.

The day the machine quit, my go-to-for-help man, Leo, was visiting his 105 year old auntie in San Antonio, a small town north of Guadalajara, on her birthday.

That gave me a whole day to work up a good old-fashioned righteous mad. I was mad at the machine for quitting. Poor machine was innocent. I was mad at the repairman (obviously incompetent) who had fixed me up a mere five weeks previously. I was mad that I had just enough pesos in my stash for another used machine with nothing extra.

I was mad.

This was the last straw.

By the time Leo showed up the next morning, I was primed to go stomping into town. In his pick-up truck.

I’ve talked about how I formerly, in my youth, full of p and vinegar, less wise, used to approach many aspects of life like “killing snakes”. Okay. I back slid, fell off the wagon, reverted to type, however you want to say it. I was ready to bury my poor washer in an unmarked grave, may she Rest In Peace. I mean, I was geared to go and buy a new used machine. As in, I want it and I want it now!

Understand, this is the same washer I’d lovingly had “fixed’ just five weeks previously by that same really nice and super-competent repairman. He had replaced that whole top part, the brain, or whatever it is, with one snaggled from another machine. This is an old machine. In other words, mechanically fixable, for most problems. That’s why I buy used. Fixable in Mexico.

Leo is the epitome of the type person who mulls things over, thinks them through. Drives me nuts. He is much too young to be that sensible. Don’t you hate people like that?

Leo talked me into calling the washer-fixer man and have him take a look. Then, as Leo put it, I’d at least know for sure if she had died, or is there still life in the old gal. I paraphrase.

The man showed up within an hour. Poked around two, maybe three minutes. Hauled away my washing machine.

Another hour later, he returned, hooked the hoses up and told me that something underneath had come unhooked or unhinged (other than myself). He said I still have a good washing machine.

The nice genius fixer-man charged me 300 pesos, somewhere around $18 USD.

My load of sheets are hanging on the line, happily sun baking.

I surely would feel better if I could hang my chagrin on the line to sun bake. Between impatience and righteousness.

If I was a washing machine in a laundromat, I’d be the one down on the end. The one with scrapes and scars. The one cobbled together with parts from this and that other machine, like Johnny Cash’s Cadillac. I’d be chugging along, grumbling and growling, a little lopsided, my cycle running slower than the others, but I’d get the job done.

 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Well entrenched into April

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Look Out Techies; Here I Come

Look Out Techies; Here I Come
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Back in high school, many a year ago, I took an aptitude test. I scored off the chart in mechanical ability. That made no sense to me. I could change a tire if I had to, but I wouldn’t have known how to change a spark plug or identify a distributor.

Four years later, when I lived on a ranch south of Dodson, we had electricity but none of the other niceties. No running water. No bathroom. No bathtub. I did have a precious electric wringer-washing machine. It sat in a corner of the kitchen. I hauled buckets of water from the pump out at the corner of the yard, heated it on the wood stove, then hauled more water for the rinse and poured that into a galvanized tub. In the dread of winter, with my brand new baby in diapers, my washing machine quit. Back then all diapers were cotton. So every day I had to wash by hand. Diapers, sheets, towels, my husband’s work clothes, everything—on the scrub board. My husband teased me that if the creek wasn’t frozen I could pound diapers on the rocks. I did not find it funny. He was a cowboy, not a mechanic. He knew better than to dig into the machine. Since we were snowed in, there was no way to bring a repairman out from town.

The daily scrubbing had me in tears. One night in a dream I saw how to repair the washer. The next morning I gathered tools. I lay on the floor, head tucked underneath the washing machine. I took it apart, following the steps that I remembered from my dream. I placed the parts in the order I removed them. I found the disconnected whichit and put the whole thing back together with only three extra parts. I plugged the washer in and it worked. The aptitude test proved right. I was a mechanic.

Fast forward to the brave new world of the computer. Electronics terrify me. Computers are mysterious. My children freely experimented and learned. I was afraid if I touched the wrong button, the computer might go up in smoke. Eventually my eight-year old son, who was already writing programs, taught me a few simple functions. Over the years I learned more. But when I had a problem, I called Ben to rescue me. Then I moved to Montana. Now we live a thousand miles apart. So I have been forced to learn more computer skills.

Today I am ready to dust off my resume and enter the no longer daunting field of computer repair. Here is how it happened. I was racing a deadline for my column in the Havre Daily News when my computer turned itself off. In a panic I called Ben. “It’s okay, Mom. One of the fans malfunctioned. You can use your computer for short periods, but turn it off when you are done. If you leave it running it will overheat. I’ll ship you new fans.”

Sure enough a few days later two fans arrived in the mail. Ben called and said, “Let’s fix your computer.” So I unplugged it, hauled it over to my work bench and set my phone on speaker. First he told me to take off the side panel. You push a button down and the panel slides off. It’s quite slick. Then he told me to unplug the skinny fan on the back of the computer. Next, remove the screws. I untangled a nest of wires and quickly installed the new skinny fan. Next Ben had me work on the larger clunky fan. “This one is trickier. Carefully lift the fan straight up. Don’t jiggle it because the CPU might be stuck to its bottom.” I tugged. Tugged again. “It won’t budge.” “Lift harder. Be careful though because the CPU has little prongs made of gold and if you bend them, you will be in big trouble.” I squinched my eyes shut and lifted harder, harder, harder, straight up and the fan released with the CPU stuck to it.

“Remember exactly which direction the fan came up. Carefully remove the CPU from the bottom of the fan, and put it back on the mother board. Don’t touch the sticky stuff,” he told me as I swiped my finger across the goo. I marked the edges of both the CPU and the new fan so I could remember which direction they went and placed the precious little prongy unit back where it belonged. I found the tiny lever which allowed the thousand gold prongs to slip into the whatchajiggy and took a deep breath. Following Ben’s directions, I replaced the new clunky fan. I plugged in the computer. Both fans whirred.

As I hooked my computer back up, I thought, hey, I could start a new business: Sondra’s Repair Shop—Computers and Wringer Washers, Our Specialty. But I still don’t change spark plugs.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
October 6, 2011
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