Wash Day Blues

Hello, dear reader!

And how’s the weather where you are?

Here in (not so) sunny West Yorkshire, we’re suffering our second major storm in the same number of weeks.

Which is nice.

The garden furniture (such as it is) looks like it’s been arranged by a set of angry toddlers who’ve been at the blue sweets, the howling wind and driving rain have been loud enough to give us several interrupted night’s sleep, and going much of anywhere feels like some dire, post -apocalyptic quest. At least we had the foresight to lose a fence panel before the current weather hit, though. We’re nothing if not proactive.

Not that any of that has anything to do with today’s blog post.

Kaput!

No, while the elements rage, I want to pour forth about a different kind of flood-risk, one caused by our washing machine going kaput.

Last Friday saw the Rankins (that’s myself and my super-spouse, Tina) embark on a rare night out. It was local, it involved food, and it promised a drive home in reasonably clement weather and the right side of midnight, all things which, these days, are becoming more and more welcome. (odd exceptions aside).

What was less welcome was hearing running water emanating from the garage.

Said garage is where, thanks to a galley kitchen of mediocre size, we keep the aforementioned appliance, and this is where the thing had decided to spill a substantial amount of water.

Flood Warning
It was the noise more than anything else that gave us a clue to what was happening. It was like someone had left both taps of a sink fully open, recorded the sound, and then played it through an amplifier turned up to eleven. A churning, sloshing, sound of fast flowing water.

As we opened the garage door, the sight that greeted us would have graced a certain Kevin Costner movie. The washing machine, although turned off and not in use, was spilling water from unknown parts of its anatomy, and the garage interior was beginning to take on a decidedly aquatic quality. On further inspection, at least some of the water seemed to be flowing from the drum of the machine. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have opened the door.

Luckily, the damage was, perhaps, a tad less severe than I’m painting it. Being away from home, it’s impossible to say when the leak occurred (or why), but, although there was a spreading puddle on the floor, the water had yet to cause much damage to the carefully collated collection of crap we store there. Tina, being the person more likely to get to the not amazingly accessible space behind the drier, unplugged the machine (luckily, the power outlets are situated far enough up the wall that, if water ever gets there, we’d drown before electrocution became an issue) and turned off the water supply. For the moment the issue was solved.

Which just left getting the washing machine back in some kind of working condition.

A Call To Action

We do have insurance for our household appliances, but, as this was Friday night, and things never, ever, go wrong at the weekend, we had to wait a couple of days before attempting to get in touch. I use the word attempting there quite deliberately, as Monday, they were, apparently, too busy to even let me sit in a queue, and after a recorded voice asked for everything but my inside leg measurements, it told me to ring back later and promptly cut me off. Something which happened on four separate occasions.

I persisted and eventually, a day later, managed to get through to a living breathing human being called Mohammed. After repeating the same information (a process no doubt implemented by the department of redundancy department) we were told we could get a repair that self same day something which in normal circumstances would have been brilliant, but, as we had an appointment at the vets (Bonnie has, most probably, some form of tendonitis, and has been given medication and been ordered to lose some weight) this was unfortunately not an opportunity we could seize.}

Instead, the repairman is coming Friday. He will no doubt cast aspersions over keeping the appliance in the garage, hook up his computer-thingy, tut a lot, and probably not have the parts. Luckily, Jen, my sainted sister-in-law, has offered to let us put a load or two through her machine, so, even if there’s a wait, we shouldn’t smell too much worse than normal.


Until next time…


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Hey, there! If you enjoyed reading any of the above, why not take a look at some of my published work? Below you’ll find links to a number of short stories I’m lucky enough to have included in anthologies. I’d love to know what you think


New Tales Of Old


Death Ship


Pestilence: Drabbles 1


Reaperman: Drabbles 3


The Musketeers Vs Cthulhu


Eldritch Investigations