Day 1810

I'm having trouble remembering what day it is. Did we wash the dogs today or yesterday? Both days certainly started out the same. We've been blessed with wonderful weather this holiday weekend. We take a long early walk with the dogs, followed by a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs. It's usually almost noon by the time we finish the breakfast dishes, so it seems appropriate to spend the rest of the day doing something useful.

Today, I thought I'd fix the broken storage drawer on the pedestal under the washing machine in the utility room. The front-loader washing machine sits on this raised pedestal to make it easier to load and unload. There is a handy drawer in this pedestal where you can store your detergent, plastic trash bags, or in our case, tons of Tupperware containers that we never use anymore. For some reason, this drawer won't close anymore and I always have to find something heavy to prop in front of it when I do laundry.

You'd think the drawer would just slide out, so I could see if there was anything jammed underneath. Nope! I had to spend twenty minutes on Google, looking for instructions on how to disassemble the thing. I empty all the crap out of the big metal drawer, find the right tools, take the drawer apart, and try to find the problem. Other than a thick layer of dust on the brick floor under the washer, everything looked fine.

I cleaned the drawer and its contents. I scrubbed the dirty floor underneath. Then I put everything back together again. After all this work, the drawer still slid forward. I had accomplished nothing. The problem was that the pedestal wasn't level anymore. Over the years, the vibrations from too many heavy towel loads had caused the leveling screws to shift and tilt the entire pedestal slightly downhill. The technicians who installed the washer and dryer had leveled the pedestal very precisely before they placed the very heavy front-loader on top of it. In order to level things again, I would have to remove the washing machine, which was impossible. This is why you should be very careful before you attempt to make a simple repair. Simple things can turn difficult very quickly.

After wasting hours messing around with the washing machine, I barely had time to go to the grocery store and pharmacy before it was time to walk the dogs again. We did have a very nice walk as the sun set behind us and then returned home to enjoy a nice dinner. I suppose that I could have made better use of this beautiful day, but at least I won't wonder why that drawer isn't working anymore. Janet bought something at Ikea today, so I know what I'll be doing tomorrow.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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