The Dog Ate My Washer, and other odd things

We own an every-other-year timeshare, so this was our last family trip to Arizona until 2012, a year that feels as long away as the year 2000 did when I was a kid. Back then, I tried to imagine how the world would be in 40 years, convinced we would be in definitely be in flying cars like George Jetson. Or living in thousand story silver towers with connecting monorails and eating nutrition pills instead of actual food. As for the rest of the picture, I wasn't so sure. Unlike the vision of the future from Orwell or Wells, our technological and social advances went in strange directions, more organic to our nature than these futurists imagined. Although I wouldn't have said this as little as a decade ago, Big Brother is certainly present, but not in a clunky, flying camera way. The messengers of information turned out to be as mysterious as bacteria once were to the medical field; in this case, electronic signals that have created a 3-D digital world of surveillance and loss of personal privacy.

I'm not thrilled with the loss of privacy but there has been one silver lining in the Big Brother age: our ability to find the answer for just about anything by digging into the ever-expanding digital world of shared information. I'm an unabashed answer-nut and dip into this well often. But search engines can't answer everything, nor can they prepare us for the unexplained.

Take the the odd things that have cropped up as 2010 begins to roll.

First was the strange leak in our washing machine that happened just as the New Year dawned. The full size washer/dryer stack is my pride and joy and a welcome release from the drudgery of slogging laundry to the laundromat. It's a new-ish Maytag, front loader, a water-efficient unit that slaps the clothes around a fair bit. Built to last of course: we splurged on this, and a whole phalanx of energy-star appliances when we renovated our home, certain repairs would be in the far, faraway future.

So I was taken aback when, just before we left for our holiday, the washing machine flooded and turned our laundry room into a wading pool. Water was pouring from the bottom of the front door in buckets, (and perhaps elsewhere) and I couldn't figure out why. The 2 year warranty had just expired, of course, and calls to the famous Maytag Repairman, yielded frightening news: Pots of money just to take a look, with the expectation that pots more would be needed to fix whatever was causing the catastrophic leak. No wonder he's lonely....

Not wanting to spend pots of money right before a vacation (there goes my once-a year massage at the spa), I called in the local calvary - two guys from the Italian section of our town who have a ratty looking (read cheap) appliance repair shop on the main thoroughfare. Frick and Frak came out as promised, and after poring over the Maytag manual, examined the motor and various parts of the machine with silent concentration. Then Frick stood back to show me the problem: A semi-circular chunk was missing from the rubber washer that separated the drum from the door. Why hadn't I seen this? Second shock: It looked suspiciously like bite mark. And was dog-height from the floor.

"That there is your problem," said Frick, as both men regarded me solemnly. It was then I remembered seeing a half-moon piece of grey rubber on the floor next to the dog beds, picking it up and saying, "Huh, what the heck is this?" and then throwing it in the garbage.

Frack spoke from his position sprawled on the floor (where he was putting the front back on the motor). "This is a really expensive part - like around $200.00."

"What do I do?" I wailed. I knew these guys wouldn't try to rip me off.

Frick shrugged. "Well, if you find that piece of rubber, you could try gluing it back in place with some silicone." I knew the Maytag Repairman would never have made this suggestion. I warmed up to my visitors.

"Okay," I replied, with some hope of salvaging a bad situation, and they got up, accepted the $20.00 I had in my wallet as payment for their diagnosis (Maytag wanted $70.), and left.

Then I went out back, found all the garbage bags, and pulled on some rubber gloves.

Yup, this is what we homeowners call 'adjusting to the realities of life during very expensive renovations that go on for ten years because you can't afford to do them in one'.

Like a good CSI, I meticulously separated and examined every mangled piece of paper, orange rind, eggshell, and slimed assortment of unrecognizable food items, in a painstakingly slow process. I was determined to find that 2" piece of curved rubber, bite marks and all, no matter how long it took. Two hours later, I gave up.

The repair service for Maytag (I wasn't about to entrust this job to two guys who needed a manual to check the motor) gave me the bad news on the overall cost, and I took it on the chin, including the snickers about how the dog ate our washing machine. Then I had to tell my husband, who fortunately has bonded with the little ball of dirt we fondly call our Shorkie, and who has forgiven many previous incidents involving donuts, our cooler, and (we think) the bowl of strawberries on our dining room table. Oh, and the $50.00 frantic calls to the Animal Poison Control Center to make sure the items weren't going to kill our little dear.

Everything was duly fixed when we came home from Arizona, the money kissed goodbye, and I'm back happily washing clothes.

But other mysteries keep cropping up, and some have yet to be solved.

Like the little buttonhole inside the pocket of Mimi's hoodie. Just the left pocket, not the right. You can stick your finger in there and tickle her tummy. Other than that, the reason for it has me stumped. If you think you can figure out why it's there, please let us know.

No garbage-hunting required.