Adventure of the Washing Machine

Once upon a time there was a washing machine. It lived in the basement of Sir Daddy and Lady Mommy's house. It was loved and relied on. However, it had a little quirk. Its door stays locked for two minutes after the Spin Cycle is completed. This has been the downfall of several loads of laundry, for in those two minutes, Lady Mommy's mind gets distracted and the laundry forgotten until it is smelly from sitting in the washing machine.

Until the time of this story, this quirk had not cause any real trouble. But alas, one day, Lady Mommy ran to the basement to quickly change the laundry from the washer to the dryer while Baby Eamon stood yelling in his crib. She reached the washer, tried the handle, and it would not open. Baby Eamon yelled more. She tried again, but still it would not open. And Baby Eamon was still yelling. She ran two flights of stairs, got Baby Eamon, who promptly stopped yelling, and carried him back down the two flights of stairs. But when she tried it again, the door still did not open. She waited several hours, but still the door did not open.

She thought, "Perhaps if I run the load again, it will reset and open the door." So she did, but the door still did not open. By this time it was late, so she turned off the machine and went to bed. In the morning, she found the manual that came with the machine. It did not give her any helpful advice, and the service number that it provided put her on hold, telling her the wait time would be at least 10 minutes. She hung up. She called the people who installed it, just in case they would have some advice, but they did not answer the phone. So she called a repair place in town that fixed her dryer earlier in the year.

The man that answered the phone first said that no one would be able to come until later the next week. Then as he realized what the problem was, he was willing to talk Lady Mommy through the steps need to fix this "simple problem." The first thing was to unplug the machine and wait for 15-20 minutes. Lady Mommy did this without any success. The next step was to take off the front panel, pull the lock manually then replace the cover. So with Baby Eamon, screwdriver, and cell phone in tow, Lady Mommy faced the washer. The three screws that the Man on the Phone told her about were not where they were supposed to be. Baby Eamon tried climbing the washer, then eating the lint on the floor, then unpacking the sewing boxes that were stacked nearby. This did not help Lady Mommy understand what the Man on the Phone was talking about. So she took a break and gave Baby Eamon his lunch and put him down for his nap.

While eating lunch, she asked her good friend Google for some help. He was quite helpful in explaining that the machine that the Man on the Phone thought she had, and the machine that she really has are different. Google also explained how to remove the front cover of the machine she did have, though it was very complicated. Once Baby Eamon was asleep, Lady Mommy again faced the washing machine. She again unplugged it, and just to make sure that it was still stuck, she tried the handle. The door swung open easily.

Lady Mommy plugged the machine back in, took the laundry out and put it in the dryer, and put a new load in the washer, confident that if it did get stuck again, she would be able to fix it. An hour later, she checked the wash. The door again opened easily.

Lady Mommy put away the screw driver, and Baby Eamon slept (for another 10 minutes.)