Saturday, July 4, 2009

"Honey, I found the problem with the dryer..."

Our clothes dryer started making an uncomfortable noise, so I decided it would be best to investigate sooner rather than later. You see, the last time a dryer made a bad noise, I spent a couple of weeks hoping it would simply go away. It didn't. And that was one ugly repair job. I learned a few lessons that time around.

So I started taking the dryer apart a couple of nights ago, but it took a while to figure out how to get the top open and then clean what I could reach. (Different dryer, and more than ten years have passed.) This morning I took off the door and front panel, and while I was cleaning, I found... [cue sinister music]



Could this have something to do with why my sons don't have girlfriends right now?

Oh -- that's my hand. Sorry.

Home safety experts tell us it's best to clean all the lint out of your dryer much more often than any of us do. There's lotsa lint in there, and lint is highly combustible, and dust bunnies are plotting to take over the world.

What I really found while scooping out nine years of lint was a little nylon strip that used to be a slide. For $26.17 I can replace both slides and have a happy dryer again, except I'll have to wait for the parts to come and then I'll have to take the WHOLE thing apart so I can install the little buggers. Guess what I hope to be doing next weekend? Eh... just in time for our wedding anniversary.

Oh, and pretend these are decorations. I did get the dryer put back together, but I'm not crazy about using it and listening to the drum scraping... scraping... clawing... trying to get out... Oops -- wrong holiday. Happy Fourth!

4 comments:

Terra said...

The photo of the ominous hand and the dryer lint is quite frightening.
Keep small children away from this sight please.
Ha ha, Terra

Katharine said...

Yeah! Somebody who "gets" my humor! I'm afraid this was too oblique for some people to understand. Or else they just didn't think it was funny... nah, it couldn't be that.

Anyway, thanks, Terra, and I'll consider posting a warning on similar posts. Or not. Muuuahahaha!

MandB said...

Eeek! I LOVE that hand! The blood-red nails! Good luck...

Anonymous said...

When I looked at the picture, I thought "that looks like MY hand!" We may wear the same nail color. :)

I always kind of enjoyed it when our washer and/or dryer were out of commission when our kids were at home and we had LOTS of laundry. It gave me an excuse to go to the nice clean lauderamat in a near-by town, use multiple machines at the same time, and get done really quick!