Housekeeping

WAYNE’S WORDS
Volume 3 Number 27
Housekeeping

The other day I was finishing up all kinds of chores. It had been a long list with a lot of other life things mixed in. Needless to say – I was tie-yurd. The last thing that needed to been done take The Boy’s clothes out of the dryer, fold them and put them away. Thank God! It had been such a long, hard week and I just wanted to be done.

As I was taking his garments from the dryer, I kept noticing strange gunk on his clothes. The first couple of shirts to come out with the crud on them raised no real alarms – he is a 12 year-old boy after all. Then more. And then more. What the hell? Finally, I just pulled all of his stuff out into a basket and… OH NO! I stared into my dryer. I then blinked my unbelieving eyes trying to make the horror go away. It stayed.

The inside of my dryer was black and gummy! When I say “gummy,” I mean it. The entire dryer drum and interior back was coated with GUM! The Boy had left two, brand-new packs of gum in the pocket of a pair of his jeans and the dryer super-heated it and spread it like frosting all over the interior.

I tried a sponge to slow or no avail. Crap! I only know of one thing to cure this. I went to the garage and got the WD-40. I took off the dryer door and proceeded to coat the gum with the wonder spray. Miracle or not, WD-40 still took a long time and a lot of scrubbing. I would be done – then see some more gum. Then I would be done again – then see some more. Finally, I got all the gum out, but I was then left with a dryer (and subsequent lint) that was coated with a petroleum product. Can you spell fire?

I pulled out the unit so I could take off the back and clean out any WD-40 soaked lint. Mom had been telling me for some time that I should clean out the back of the dryer due to some possibility of fire or something. When I pulled off the back, I then understood what she was talking about. It was so full of lint I could have made a king-sized quilt.

Finally, two hours after the initial gum discovery, I was done. All gum, WD-40 residue, and lint was cleaned out of the dryer. It is actually a good thing this happened. If the gum had not been in there I may have never gotten around to taking off the back of the dryer and we could have been a statistic in the “dryer caused house fire category.”

It is kind of like life I guess. You attempt to solve an immediate, very visible problem and you end up discovering that there was a giant blanket of lint clogging up the works and creating a fire hazard all along. Hmmm.

Until Next Time,

Wayne

PS Yesterday I was rearranging my room to move something in there – something that would benefit me. I had giant bookcases to empty and move. I had to try the bed in every position to see if I could make the new piece fit. I had to make nightstands. I had to rewire cable. Finally, after a long time (10 hours), it all came together.

I guess that is like life too.