When does it stop?

Lately its been feeling like every time we turn around its something else, something new.  Not a month ago in the middle of all Roberts daily laundry our washer decides to start sounding like someone loaded it with a bucket of large rocks, so it was replaced.  Hey, it lasted about 8-10 years with washing three kids and our laundry for a majority of that time and now with Robert, for the past year its been washing about 3-5 loads daily with twice that on the weekend.  The only small thing was the on/off knob of the dryer broke (inside) and I’ve been looking for a replacement with none to be found.  Manufacturers are only required to have available repair parts for 5-7 years I believe, so we’re out of luck.  But, we can turn it on using a pair of needle nose pliers (Redneck or Ghetto?), so we keep forging ahead.   We started about three months ago preparing the house for the remodel and move by pre-packing about half or more of the house and have store then in our 2-car garage which is full and an off-site storage unit, which had a whole set of issues in it self. In the past week we have continued to prepare for the move and keep finding little and some not so little things around the house that need fixing or replacing.  We have gone about a week in a good place, it seemed that everything was behind us.  We signed the brokers agreement with our realtor, Matt (also daughters boyfriend of 7 years), the house’s remodel’s (paint, carpet and baseboards) were completed with no issues, the house went onto the market, ran into a landscaper who at the last-minute detailed our backyard and more.  We’re in a pretty good place now or so we thought.

 

Yesterday I was doing another load of laundry and tried to turn the dryer on/off knob and could not get it to work, I then like most guys do, opened the panel grabbed the wires attached to it and grabbed the switch arm with the needle nose pliers and  before even touching it, I received an electrical jolt.  The electricity arced from the switch to the pliers and it was a shocking wake up call, on a funnier note, it happened a second time.  Now we have a dryer that has turned into an electrical hazard, Robert is due home in 10 minutes so I’ll have to wait for Trish before I can get up to Lowes and find us a new dryer, I will look for the mate to the new washer we just purchased three weeks ago.  Dinner comes and dinner goes and work my way up to Lowes and find the unit I need, matches our washer, largest drum on the market (7.4 cubic ft.), steam capable, controls in front, will dry a load of towels in 25 minutes, our old one, 80 minutes if your lucky and have feed it a Red Bull first, Lowes card 5% extra discount, $200 Rebate (??), now the main issue being delivery.  The sales rep looks in back and they have just one in stock and as I explain Robert and his daily laundry output and that we really would like to see about having it delivered tomorrow (Friday), he gets a slight smile and I swear you could hear a chuckling coming from his way.  He then unloads the bad news, Lowes can not deliver (backed up) until June 17th., a week and a half out.  I explain that by then we will have 40-50 loads of laundry piled up and that we’ll lose the youngest dog inside the laundry and I feel no sympathy but I also do understand.

 

Time for Plan R for Richard of course, okay I’ll take it and any other power cables, ducts, etc. that I might need and then I just need to have it loaded into the back of my SUV.  I am accommodated in part due to all the $$ we’ve spent on just Lowes boxes, packing tape, markers, baseboards, oh and a washer.  I get home, slide the dryer (all of 100 lbs) out the back of the car and lower it onto my transfer cart an item every one should have in their home, talk about 101 uses this thing has 102 uses, and I keep finding more.  Push the new dryer into the house and of course Trish is not surprised.  I explain that the earliest delivery was not until the 17th and did I mention she was not surprised.  To shorten the story a bit, old moved out, wired, new moved in and it’s alive, it’s alive.  Now every appliance in this house has been replaced in the past 6 months  who ever moves in is getting everything new except the washer and dryer, those are going with us.  Moral of this story is, yes I over did it last night by bringing home the dryer, “BUT” there are times even those of us with chronic pain, have to do things that we probably should not be doing, but it needs to be done.  This has been the story of my life for about two months now getting ready to put the house on the market and for the upcoming move.  I did it, I know I will pay for it but in a few days I and others like me that do this, will be back to our static level (our normal level of pain).  If you see us doing something you know we shouldn’t and so do we, there is more than likely a really good reason.  Believe me, we don’t want to be anymore pain than we already are.