Monday, October 09, 2006

The dryer factor.

I suppose the good news is that I got our dryer working again.

The bad news is that, like all major appliances getting up there in working hours, it's bound to sooner or later need replacement - and at a cost I'd just as soon not think about. They, like we humans, get old and stop working. It seems to be one of the main laws of the universe - like grandkids never tracking mud across a clean floor, or, if the shoe fits...it's ugly.

One of the more simple lessons my chemistry/physics students had to digest was the cause of things wearing out; something called "entropy", which is, in this case, a scientific term meaning "expensive".

The "things" I'm referring to are all the modern machines designed to make our lives less complicated - washers, dryers, computers, cell phones, stoves etc., etc! They're all subject to 'entropy' and they're all expensive to fix or replace. I won't even mention automobiles. There, the cost of even a seemingly simple repair can be right up there with a monthly mortage payment.

Wearing out is not an unexpected event. Happens all the time. It just seems these "things" always tend to surrender in groups. Consequently, when you experience the apparent last struggles of (in our case) a dryer, it's probably a good idea to check the pulse of freezer and water heater too.

If they don't all die at once, then their other forte is timing.

Example: Home remodeling is so in vogue...has been for at least a year and a half around our homestead. Remodeling translates to new ceramic tile and hardwood flooring, completely redone kitchen and bathrooms, new plantation shutters, new furniture, new deck and landscaping, and far worse, the walls and ceilings (read "paint"). Painting means something, according to artistic Patti, that we can do ourselves (unfortunately including yours truly) to save some green.

So, appliance failure never happens when you are flush with cash. Nope. Appliance death is always inconvenient. When you combine, let's say, a clothes dryer kicking the bucket along with house remodeling, the checkbook starts wheezing like it's going to cross the river Styx too.

Still, I did get the dryer working again. However, that didn't happen without some pain.

Like most married adult males, I've become accustomed to various vocalizations from the significant other and the likely interpretations for such. Be that as it may, when I heard a loud "pop", followed immediately by a startled mini-scream, I rushed into the utility room to find the dryer lid flopped open and the acrid smell of electrical smoke...and Patti with both hands over her mouth.

When I asked her what happened her breathless response was, " We need a new dryer".

I wasn't convinced, although the last thing I wanted to do was to disassemble a dryer to see why it's making "funny noises" and taking twice as long to dry the clothes we generate for washing every few days.

That being the case, instead of calling the repair man, I told 'she who must not be made mad' that I would check it out tomorrow and take appropiate action.

Reluctantly, the next morning I gathered my socket wrenches and other tools and got started.

I'd have been making funny noises too with what I found inside. $.87 in assorted change; an ink pen cap (red); a plastic flash card case (go figure); a large paper clip; an unmatched sock(dryers really do eat them); one very dessicated cricket and enough lint to clog the Disney tunnel.

Two hours later, I had all the parts cleaned, kinked and too long exhaust hose cleared and shortened, fuse replaced, motor oiled and everything back togather generally the way it was before the dryer had been pronounced dead. It didn't even make funny noises when I started it. I felt pretty good for having not succumbed to what could have been an expensive sojourn to Sears.

Still, I'm not too optimistic. The silly thing is still pretty old and the fix is probably only temporary. I'm just hoping to get another year or so out of it before it really does die in some cataclysmic event and takes the dishwasher and refrigerator with it.

No real moral to the story here. Juat another country boy horror story avoided, and 400 or so dollars saved...an amount that's a mere drop in the bucket compared to what's going into remodeling.

Never really ends, does it?

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