On a typical Thursday evening in the beginning of July, Jeanne pulled the knob on her washing machine to begin a load of laundry, only to be greeted by a loud screeching noise that offended her ears. That can't be good, she thought.
Three weeks later, the noise had grown in volume and screechiness while the water flow slowed as if it were a car entering the HRBT.
The flow reminded her of the dud of a drinking fountain in her elementary school hallway: Pressing the button hoping to elicit an arcing stream of clear water for her drinking pleasure, she was instead given a bubbling dribble that could only be ingested by licking hard metal.
Jeanne had hit her tolerance for washing machine misbehavior, so she took to YouTube. There, a white-haired gentleman with dripping wet clothes piled on his concrete basement floor told her she needed to clean out the screens in the water valve. If that did't fix it, she would need to replace the whole valve.
Screen cleaning didn't work, so using her washer model number, Jeanne scurried to her computer so that Amazon would bring her a replacement valve.
At its arrival on her doorstep today (a day later than promised, Mr.Bezos!), Jeanne grew excited at the prospect of silencing the screeching. Knowing that disassembling machines has at times resulted in things being more broken than they originally were, she proceeded with caution. The fear of having no washer at all made her eyes go wide and throat tighten.
Two hoses, seven screws, and a small green clamp-thing stood between her and a silenced washer. She proceeded methodically (once finding the proper hex tool to undo all those little screws, as her tool box most closely resembles a junk drawer).
New valve in place, Jeanne found reassembling the washer went quickly. The two water hoses reattached, she plugged in its power cord, pushed the machine back into place, and crossed her fingers as she pulled out the washer knob to test her work.
It purred like a kitten and water smoothly flowed out like a graceful stream into the silver washer tub.
"LET'S GO!!!!!" she yelled excitedly, quickly followed by a "TAKE THAT B*TCHES!!" as she pumped her right fist in the air.
Her sons erupted in cheers from the next room.
Later, while readying to make dinner, the small screw she found lying on her kitchen counter was quickly deemed entirely irrelevant.
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