the Hippo Brigade

When your washing machine breaks, every day is laundry day

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August 18, 2011

In my house the words bras and underwear have become synonymous with the words luxurious and unnecessary.

My washing machine broke. It was a beautiful day sunny day. I was softly humming a tune from “The Sound of Music” while I was ironing, and my children were quietly working on their arithmetic at the kitchen table.

Just kidding.

What really happened was Hudson just pooed the biggest poo of his life (And yes, I know. Because I chart these things, complete with close-up photographs and venn diagrams. Nope, that’s not true. That’s gross, and now I just puked a little in my mouth), I rinsed the cloth diaper off, and threw it into the washing machine with the other poo soaked atrocities.

Because the picture I’m painting does not seem very stressful, I’d like to add that the dog was also barking, Berlyn was painting on her walls with my lipstick, Hudson was shaking the box of borax all over the carpet, and I just started my period.

There.

That sounds stressful.

No? You don’t think so?

What about this:

The dog was having a bout of irritable bowel syndrome on my bed, Berlyn was about to bungee jump off the second story landing, Hudson was having the time of his life playing in the dog’s aforementioned irritable bowel situation, and a neighbor was knocking at my door to tell me my car was ON FIRE!!

Okay fine, the car fire is a bit of a stretch.

CLUNK! About 14 minutes into the washing machine cycle, right when the warm water hit all the poop and urine, and it started to really smell like death, was when my washing machine decided to break.

I peeked into the laundry room and noticed the machine stopped, so I did what any red-blooded American would do, I pressed START again.

That should do it.

14 minutes later. CLUNK.

This time, I thought I’d outsmart the washing machine, and unplug that sassy minx. You wanna play hardball, huh? Well, bahhahhhaa, I’ll just unplug you!

I plugged it back in and pressed START.

14 minutes later. CLUNK.

Washing machine: 1

Me: 0

F*CK!!

I called a repair man, and he determined it was broken.

Washing machine time of death 1:23 pm. No known causes.

Moment of silence, please.

Because the time between calling a repair man, and getting the repair man to my house spanned several days, I was without my washing machine for over a week. I was forced into creativity.

First piece of business was to deal with the nasty cloth diapers that were stewing in my broken machine. Which meant, “Come on kids! We’re going to Mimi’s house!!”

My mom was so enamored with my children, she didn’t even notice me sneaking into her laundry room with my pail of stink, and hijacking her washing machine. WINNING.

Now as far as our clothing was concerned, I did nothing. I just let the dirty ones pile up. I know I could have washed my clothes in my bathtub, or taken them to a laundry mat. But doing nothing was way more exciting.

An adventure even.

Everyday I was faced with the daunting task of figuring out what to wear. Humm…should I wear the men’s XL hoodie and cut off sweatpants combo or “kiss the cook” apron?

This slutty-nurse Halloween costume or my bathrobe?

Bathing suit or a bridesmaid dress?

I felt like I suddenly had so many more clothing options! WOW, I never thought of wearing these cut-off maternity overalls with my vintage fur coat, but this look is totally working for me.

Getting my daughter on board with what I like to call, “creative problem solving” proved to be a little more difficult.

MOM!!! Where are all my underwear!!

Berlyn, we don’t have any more clean ones, why don’t you pick up the ones you wore yesterday and flip them inside out??

YUCKY MOM!!

Or just go commando, like me!

Commando?

It’s when you don’t wear any underwear.

YUCKY MOM!!

Alright fine, here’s a bathing suit and some pajama bottoms. I’ll wear a hockey jersey, and these mesh underwear I got from the hospital when you were born, and I’ll belt it with this metallic belt, then we’ll go to the mall to do some shopping.