I can't really explain it, other than this: to me, laundry is like a good story. It has a beginning, middle and end.
As an advertising copywriter, I'm not used to things having an end. I'm used to them going on forever and ever, revision upon revision, with everyone including focus groups, the client's wife and the cleaning lady on three opening their big, stupid, gaping pieholes and chiming in with their unqualified opinions about how their ad - the one that I've just slaved over and honed to gleaming perfection until 3 in the morning - should be rewritten and why what it's saying isn't the way it should be said.
Okay, I may have digressed.
Anyway, when the spin cycle is finished, the genuine feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment is just getting started.
Washing machines are like cars to me. I know how to run them, but I don't know how to fix them. So when my 12 year-old Whirlpool Heavy Capacity 8-cycle 2-speed top-loading washer decided to spring a leak and turn our small laundry room into an indoor pool, needless to say I found myself momentarily baffled.
Keeping my wits about me, I leapt into action. I called my son in and had him clean it up. Once he was done I told him to wash the towel. He didn't appreciate the irony.
Fortunately we have an extended warranty on our creaky old washer. I just called it in and the guy came out. After checking the washer thoroughly, he made his diagnosis and said I had a leak in my drainage hose.
I get that a lot.
Sadly he didn't have the part on the truck. But he was able to do a temporary repair using what I like to call "the miracle of duct tape." When the part comes in I'll call again and have him install it.
Until then I'll be at the laundromat, my fist full of quarters, writing my story.
Then folding it.
