Your comments yesterday about your least-favorite songs were the funniest ever. I was in tears laughing. Everyone go read yesterday's comments. I'd cull them, and you know how I like to use the word "cull," but my deadline IS TODAY and I have to scream on here, write something, GO MEDITATE AND BE SERENE, and get my work done.
Then tomorrow I head for the Outer Banks, which I just typed "pouter banks" and I hope I do not end up pouting when I am there.
For a long time now, in fact probably since we installed it--and by "we" I mean not me--the dryer has been a pain in my arse. You have to dry clothes for 200 minutes. That is not one of my exaggerated numbers. The most the timer would go is 100, and I'd ALWAYS have to turn the timer all the way to the end twice before I didn't have I-live-in-Seattle damp clothes.
My mother has always insisted this was, you know, bad, and that I should do something about it, but I was very busy adopting cats.
On Saturday, I was doing some laundry and I noticed a smell. A burning smell. Burning. From the dryer. Well, that seems like not a good sign, I thought cleverly.
So yesterday I called Lowe's, where the dryer was purchased, and I got a man with quite the personality on him. Remember that movie with Robin WIlliams where the people were in suspended animation for decades and Robin Williams was a doctor and he got them out of that state and then the drug didn't work and they went back to being unanimated?
This guy was clearly on his way back to being unanimated.
"lowe's," he said, with all the excitement of a tree sloth. I told him my tale.
"Whatyear'dyoubuyit," he intoned, and it was like he was asking how long he had to live. "April 19, 2008," I said, because I am weird with dates.
"model."
"Oh, no. I mean, I really like having my picture taken, and I have a blog so a lot of people see me. But model? Ha! No. No."
"what model's yer dryer, ma'am."
"Oh."
Anyway, as much as I wished he himself and all his sparkling charm would have been the one to come over, they sent some guy from Snappy Appliances or some similar name.
"HOW YOU DOIN' MA'AM!" Now this guy had some oomph. And he loved my dogs. And he was male, so you know how Edsel got. Is it possible for a dog to grin? Because Edsel was doing so manically.
I was emailing ...friend about this whole scenario, who was surprised that I had failed to mention to him about the dryer, you know, catching fire the other day. "I'm taking care of it," I told him. "Right now I'm putting on makeup so the dryer guy approves of me."
"Now, see, had this happened to me, the next day I'm out getting t-shirts: Ask Me About My House Fire. But I guess one person's major episode is another person's reason to put on makeup," he wrote.
While I was reading ...friend's email, the dryer guy says, "Oh, wow." I do not think he was appreciating my makeup.
"Ma'am?" he came into the computer room. "Your vent is completely clogged with hair."
I guess none of us should be surprised by that news. Of course it was right then that Here's-My-Fur Lily made an appearance, furthering this guy's impression that I literally had a house made of follicles.
It turned out I needed a whole 'nother person to come: a vent guy. The hair was so bad I had to get a whole new, you know, vent. And YES. I clean that lint thing each time. When you are Bernie on Room 222 with your hair, a few swipes in the lint tray are not gonna do it.
Honestly it's like these people must sit around waiting for good times such as these. Because Vent Guy was over before I could even put my afro pick back in my pocket.
"Oh, wow," he said, back near my vent.
"You know what you don't want to hear from your vent guy?" I wrote ...friend. 'Oh, wow.'"
In the meantime, Edsel had his bedazzler out to add a "V" to his collar, because he has changed his name to Edsel Vent. If you thought he loved the DRYER guy, Vent Guy was like Rhett Butler swooping in to usurp Ashley Wilkes. There was no comparison.
"Dees is a nice dug," Vent Guy said. He had some kind of accent. You know all my accents sound Finnish. Vent Guy was Mediterranean, maybe? Hispanic? I don't know. All I know is my dog is taking him to the courthouse for a nice civil ceremony this weekend. They're getting a place on Fire Island this summer.
"Come loooook at dees, ma'am," said Vent Guy. Why do they always want to SHOW and EXPLAIN to you what's wrong? If I wanted to know from my vents I'd have gone to vent school. Just get the 95 pounds of hair out my dryer and be off with you.
Anyway I have a whole new hole in my house with a fancy vent that opens and closes instead of that old-fashioned metal thing that kind of looks like C-3PO, and yesterday I did a load of towels that took 50 minutes to dry.
FIFTY MINUTES! I feel how Ma Ingalls must have felt when she got new clothespins. It's all so high-tech.
He also gave me this giant brush that I have to stick in the dryer every three weeks to, you know, fish out the...hair.
Today the dogs, cats and I are going to a sheep farm somewhere and getting shorn.
