Clean Sheets on a Saturday Night

with a Broken Washing Machine

I currently live in an early 20th century house in western Massachusetts. It’s divided into five apartments with six residents, one Gen X, one Millennial, three Gen Z (I’m guessing), and one Baby Boomer (that would be me). We all get along just fine. Actually, better than fine, and texting is our tin can with a string.

It seems that the status of the washer and dryer in the cellar dominates our texting correspondence because who wants to walk all the way down to the dark and dreary bowels of the cellar to find the machines está ocupado?

I, of course, don’t need to text to learn if the machines are available because there’s a hole in the floor in my bedroom closet. My bedroom happens to be directly above the laundry room and when the washer is in motion, I am lulled by the slosh, slosh, slosh of pajamas and underwear being cleansed. When the laundry is transferred to the dryer, if there happens to be a pair of overalls in the mix (and you know who you are, wink wink) my meditation is accented by the metallic clang of buckles every three seconds.

I work at home so I usually have free rein of the laundry but these past two weeks, it’s been pretty quiet down there. Until, the weekend was approaching. I mean, who doesn’t want clean sheets for Saturday night?

From Gen X. Laundry update:

I was around when (he who shall not be named) was working on the laundry for the nth time (he's been putting in hours on this thing), and I can show you a work around to make the machines work (and it's free, which is neato) if you want to meet. I can't really explain it over text.

Sounds interesting. Then…from Gen Z:

Would love to meet tonight since I was hoping to do some laundry tonight! Would you be around at ~7?

But…from Gen X:

I'm afraid I'll be gone by then for the evening. And actually, I don't know why I can't explain it over text, so here goes:

Basically, there are some (safe i.e. very low voltage) wires visible where the coin box would be on the washer. If you touch them together, they will complete the same circuit that gets completed when a quarter drops into the coin drawer. You'll see the display drop by 25 cents. Keep touching them to each other until it allows you to start your load and it's good to go.

I've got a load going in and I'll be out of the drying in about an hour.

Feel free to move it to my hamper if you get there first.

And I said…

BTW, your explanation sounds easy ...like jump starting a car, right?? 😇

I mean, HOT WIRING a car. Why didn't you just say so? LOL

You had to be there. It doesn’t sound as funny in print, but I couldn’t wait to do a load of wash!

I must admit that I didn’t learn this technique exactly first hand. I was a feral farm kid put out to pasture every morning and left to my own devices on a hundred acres, rain or shine.

On a farm you have to be resourceful so I saw my share of solutions to problems in the toolshed, the tractor barn, et cetera. I was a quiet kid but a good observer.

This brings to mind something my husband shared decades ago about an incident in 6th grade. Sister Superior had expelled him and his best friend Duke for dropping lit cherry bombs in the boys’ room toilets towards the end of the school year. Public school Junior High would become the site of their adventures the following September 1963.

In the meantime, the way my husband tells it, Duke spent the summer boosting cars from the top of Fiske Hill. My husband certainly wouldn’t have first hand knowledge of such a thing. Eye-roll.

BTW, the laundry is busy these days. We’re all washing our blankets.

I’m not looking forward to the return of the coin box, but until, then I’m enjoying some retro memories of hot wiring anecdotes.