How do you like our new washer and dryer? Nice, huh! Okay, so not really. But it would be, if we had found $2000 in change within the old dryer casing.

Our dryer broke, which surprised me, because my money was on washer failure. (Dryers are known to last a century, but washers not so much, the way men don't live as long as women. Anyway, you need both. You could get by without one or the other, but you'd end up dirty, wet, and miserable.) Mrs. Ditchman mentioned that the dryer wasn't getting hot a few days ago [SEXUAL JOKE DELETED] and I dismissed the notion. Later, when I ran out of clothes to wear, the issue reached crisis proportions. So I went out to the garage and took a look, thinking it was probably just a clogged lint vent, or something.

I took it apart and herded the dust buffaloes to some other corner of the garage. Then I put it back together, with the sum total of my efforts resulting in still no heat. Then I educated myself and reverse-engineered the thing, with the help of the Internet, and now I have it narrowed down to one of two parts: the gas ignitor or the thermal fuse. I'd test them, but my ohmmeter melted when I left it on my dashboard one hot afternoon. Anyway, it's probably just a ten dollar part. I may buy one of each and replace them both, because, hey, what the hell? Now I have to find an appliance parts place which I dread because in my experience these guys hate selling parts, since they make their money fixing the appliances themselves. But I, too, know the difference between $10 and $150, and with all those savings I could afford a new ohmmeter.

I was looking for the manual. I asked Mrs. Ditchman about it and she mocked me for even asking. Mocked me! Seems the dryer is one of the last remaining pre-marital possessions, and "I bought that dryer 15 years ago when I was young and didn't care to save that stuff," meaning the manuals. I looked anyway, and ten feet away from the broken dryer, on a shelf in the garage, is my box of manuals -because I save them all- and behold! At the bottom of the box: the dryer manual, c. 1996. I showed it to Mrs. Ditchman, commenting on how wise she was to marry me, a man who could meticulously organize her life. She said, "So, did you fix it yet?"

No, but it's clean. About 6 pounds of lint, enough to make a sweater (but we'd have no way to launder it.) This is all a pressing issue, since later this weekend we have family staying over and we can't all be standing around dirty, wet, and miserable now, can we? Although, a broken appliance never stopped us before. We could all just go camping.

~