It's All In The Directions

I’m not sure how long ago I may have mentioned my washing machine and it’s being on its last leg, but I can tell you this, it stood on that one leg and washed the heck out of some clothes for almost two full years! Not to say that it didn’t shake, rattle and roll – at times I thought that end of the house would just come apart, but it still did its job, so we ignored it.

Last weekend however, it finally went belly-up. It was a couple of days before New Year’s Eve so I was trying to get all of our clothes washed-up; you know, because of the old, ‘it’s bad luck to wash clothes on New Year’s Day’ deal and all.

Which quite frankly, I think is ridiculous. The whole point of those particular superstitions is that you don’t want to do anything on New Years’ Day that might determine how you spend your year going forward. Well folks, I will ALWAYS have to wash clothes, mop floors and clean toilets, so I don’t really get the whole point. Matter of fact, I’m gonna straight-up call that an inflammatory lie – because NOT doing any of those things has never made my life any different.

Or has it? Don’t even get me started on wondering how different my life could be had I ignored those superstition’s and washed clothes anyway.  Things to ponder another day.

Regardless, I’m washing two days before, and I hear the washer coming to a stop. I know this, because it’s sounds like a helicopter is about to land on our house. I go into the wash room to do the change-out from washer to dryer, and the floor is a puddle of water. This is a rather quick discovery, as I now have soaking wet sock-feet.

Fast forward – now we’re at Stewart’s, our local appliance store, picking-out/buying a washer. My husband decides he can install it himself so we loaded it-up and headed back to the house with a new washer.

With some assistance from my youngest son and his buddies, all seemed to be going well, when my husband announces he’s about to go under the house to make the connection. The boys wander-off outside and suddenly I hear my husband woo-hoo’ing back-up through the hole in the floor.

I hollered back down asking him did he need something and he said in a tone loaded with sarcasm, “well yeah, I needed someone on stand-by to make the connection on that end”. Well you know, full directions are always helpful.

Side story about full directions – I have a vehicle that auto-starts with the key-fob. No matter what I did I couldn’t get it to work. Frustrated I asked my husband one day when he was at home, to show me one more time. Turns out, no matter that you locked your vehicle the night before, it won’t crank until you lock it again. Hence, why I didn’t “follow his directions” of “lock the vehicle then push the start button”, because in MY rational mind, the vehicle was ALREADY locked.

Yes sir, for wives and children, fully explained/sentences will help every time!