My Name is Lynne and I'm a Laundraholic

Yes, I am addicted to doing laundry. That's not to say that I particularly love doing it, I just do so much of it that when I am not able to do it for a day or two, I have a hard time knowing just what to do with myself. I know that the first step to overcoming an addiction such as this is admitting that I have a problem.

OK, I'll start from the beginning. We have a very nice washer and dryer. They have been good to us over the years. I bought the dryer when I was pregnant with Riley (11 years ago). It is a Kenmore and worked like a champ for several years until about three years ago, one of the door hinges broke and so everytime you open it, the door swings out and hits you in the shin. I have a perpetual bruise on my shin to prove it. That was fine, but for the past few months, I have noticed that it is taking longer and longer to dry the clothes. As for the washer, my Kenmore washer that was lovingly given to us by Ricky's neighbor when we got married and was probably as old as me, well, it quit on us very soon after we moved to Utah. Not planning to or wanting to spend alot of money to replace it, we went to RC Willey and bought their cheapest extra large capacity washer and it has worked fine since then. But I suspect that part of our drying issues were really the fault of the washer for not spinning the clothes sufficiently. So, for the past little while, laundry has been taking up an increasing amount of my time. In fact, when Gavin is looking for me, the first place he looks is in the laundry room.

So, Ricky and I have been considering the possibility of getting a new washer and dryer. We have researched options and brands on the internet and we have been to Lowe's, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc. more times than I can count to "research."

Here's another story within a story. (I'll get back to the other one in a second.) Anyone who has been to the Home Depot in American Fork knows that the people who work there are super-friendly. In fact, we are on first name basis with the four or so different gentlemen who work in the appliance section. (We bought all of our kitchen appliances there when we moved into our house.) They are all as nice as can be and I'm pretty sure most of them spend their time off working in the Temple. They've never said that, but that's just how they act. But there was this one guy we met. He was asking us about our laundry habits and such and Ricky tells him that I do about 2 loads of laundry a day on average, so we need a more efficient system. This guy decides to confront me about it and gets all up in my face (in a very friendly way) and says: "Why do you do 2 loads of laundry a day? My wife and I have 9 kids and she doesn't even do 2 loads a day." Now I didn't say this, but I wanted to: "Um, sir, if you have 9 kids and your wife doesn't do at least 2 a day, um I hate to be the one break this to ya but...your kids are wearing dirty clothes." I didn't say that - all I could come up with was, "Um...I like clean clothes???"

Back to the story: So, we finally decided to take the plunge and we bought a new washer and dryer. It would be delivered in about a week. In the meantime, Ricky agreed to build me a nice platform to raise them up about 6 inches off the ground. It doesn't sound like much, but it makes a big difference. In order for him to do this, he had to move the old ones out a couple of days before the new ones would be here.

This is the part where I admit I have a problem. So, last Tuesday, I prepared by doing all of the laundry. I was feeling a little melancholy about it knowing that I was doing the last load in my old faithful machines. As I put the last load in the dryer and left for Trent's baseball game, I had to wipe a little tear from my eye. What? It's a MACHINE! Well, it gets worse. That night, Ricky and Opa moved them out to the garage.

So, the next morning, after the kids leave for school, I go upstairs to start my morning load of laundry and all I see is this:

I was sad. All day, I would walk by the laundry room and get a little lump in my throat. My machines were gone, but worse, I would not be able to do laundry for TWO whole days. I know, I'm weird - refer to the title of my post. My poor machines were banished to the garage, waiting to be sold on Craigslist.com.Well, Thursday came around soon enough. Here are the two nice men who helped to make all of my wildest laundry dreams come true:

These babies have changed my life in the few short days that I have had them. It's true, my friends. It's just what a laundraholic like myself needed. Twice as many clothes in a load, half the time to wash and dry, cleaner clothes, all of it. Here they are meeting Gavin:

AND they are great for playing in. Who needs a fancy swing-set in the backyard when you have a new washer and dryer?
So, I listed my old friends on Craigslist, fully disclosing all of their quirks, including the dryer's tendency to attack your shins. A nice single girl came and gave me 100 bucks and drove off with them into the sunset. It's been fun, my friends, so long.....