Happy New Year, dad! – Dec. 30, 2024
How were the holidays? Is your house full of new stuff? Kids running and playing in joyful merriment? Wrapping paper, dishes, and laundry piling up while you and yours relax on the couch? The theme of Christmas at our house this year was laundry. Just before Christmas our dryer stopped drying. As we relaxed on the couch together we gazed at the blazing fireplace…through drying racks filled with hanging trackpants and pillow cases.
For a few weeks there have been some other-worldly squeaks coming from the laundry room. I knew what they were. We’ve been down this road before. The boys and I changed the pins and rollers in the dryer a few months ago. I was shocked to hear that after only a couple months the squeaks returned! The bearings in the rollers were on their way out. Maybe it’s because we do laundry for 12 people around here. Maybe it’s because they just don’t make things like they used to. We bought parts on Amazon. We bought parts from repairmen. We bought parts from local appliance stores. The parts just don’t seem to last.
I have a conflicting mindset with appliances. Do you fix it, pay a guy to fix it, or buy a new appliance? I’ll fix the problem once. I may even fix the same problem twice. But after that it’s just hard to get motivated. The time and money required to do the work and buy the parts adds up. This time, it’s time to replace the dryer…but we haven’t yet.
It’s too cold to use the clothesline outside. But if we set up a clothesline in the house…now that would be super awesome and festive. We didn’t set up a clothesline. The boys did go out to the shed and rummaged around in the camping supplies for some drying racks. All through the holiday season there were many little elves scampering around our house but they weren’t making toys. They were hanging up Christmas decorations. Peculiar decorations like t-shirts and underwear. Clothes were drying on every available surface. In our house this was the night before Christmas: “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care. In hopes that they’d dry in the holiday air…and even more stockings hung on the rack just over there.”
I thought Santa might deliver a new dryer for Christmas but it looks like there was no room in the sled. The good news is that Boxing Day sales are on so we hope to score a good deal on a new dryer any day now.
Dad, I hope 2025 brings you many good things. I hope it brings us a good dryer. It’s about time for a date night with my cute wife and nothing says romance like strolling through the appliance aisles. How about you start the new year by taking your wife somewhere special, too? Maybe we’ll see you in the dryer section! Time flies! Make every moment count! Even the broken appliance ones.