Two Loads a Day

Our washing machine broke, and what a cause for rejoicing! We'd been wondering what to do with our overabundance of money lately. And since we're not in the mood for shelves to put our books on, or light fixtures to cover the bare bulbs that are still hanging in every room of the house, and we're not really that into paying bills, either, we were so glad when the washing machine suddenly needed replacing, as it gave us some direction for our money spending.

Since we moved into this house, washing laundry has been a community affair. Not in the same sense as it is in some places in India (as seen on The Amazing Race), or Africa. No, we don't all wash our laundry together like they do in those places, but it's just that all the neighbors were aware when the Pawliks were washing laundry. This is because our washing machine was apparently fitted with some device that caused it to be significantly louder and more rumbly than was remotely necessary for it to fulfill it's function. The obvious reason for this special feature was to give people living within a 1/2 mile radius an idea of the amount of laundry we do. (See post title if you're curious, too, and don't live within a 1/2 mile radius of us)

The best way to illustrate this is to share a conversation I overheard when David and his friend Kacper were playing in the front yard. The bathroom window was open and the laundry was washing. The spin cycle starts and Kacper says, "What's that?" David answers, "Oh, that's just the washing machine." "No way is that a washing machine. OH! I know, it's just a train." We live right near the train tracks, so when one goes by it's quite loud and shaky, and David could NOT convince Kacper that this was actually our laundry going.

So anywho, we had to go get a new one. I'm a terrible shopper and this is definitely the worst kind of shopping for me. There were probably 30+ washing machines to choose from. Ugh. I eventually decided we should just choose one with the awesomest name brand. In the end it was a toss up between "Mastercook" and "Candy." I just could NOT decide which one I loved more (which name, that is--it really was that bad, almost) so we ended up getting an Indesit. Don't know anything about the brand, but it looked cool (by European standards, anyway). Yes, this is the way Greg and Lisa make decisions when buying major household appliances.

Besides looking awesome, it's heavy on the innovation. There's no making a bajillion decisions with each load. It's just load, add your cleaning agent of choice (into the door, which is way cooler and cleaner than having a separate drawer for it), and push two buttons. Look how easy:

That's not my hand or anything, but it's even that easy when I do it at home. There should be an infomercial for this washing machine on the shopping network that shows some lady with masses of hair leaning over her regular washing machine with a puzzled and frustrated expression on her face, pushing lots of buttons and giving all sorts of sighs and grumblings and sticking out her lower jaw and lip in order to blow the hair away from her face in exasperation. At which point she is finally presented with this washing machine which is the answer to all her time consuming, confusion inducing laundry struggles. I would volunteer to be the actress in this infomercial, except that now there's never any hair coming down in my face (reason #296 that I hate my bangs: lost acting opportunities)...

So it's super easy to use, which will be good for Greg for the two weeks a year that he washes laundry, while I'm in the States with the kids. Plus, this model is called "moon" and Greg loves astronomy, so that was actually the main reason we got it.

I had a sneaking suspicion that it was all too good to be true, and I found I was right the first time we used it. It was WAAAAAY too quiet! What is that all about? What will the neighbors think of us? That we suddenly stopped washing our clothes? That will never do! I'm too shy to knock on their doors to tell them what the deal is, so instead, every time I start a load, I'm just going to raise a big flag with the words "we're currently washing laundry" (translated into Polish, of course) on the pretty, pretty telephone pole in front of our house. I'm really surprised actually, that I've come up with such a good solution. While it might not be that convenient, especially when it's raining/snowing, it's much cheaper than having someone come in to fit this model with the same noise and shake enhancing device that our old one had.

*Yes, I just wrote an entire post about our washing machine, and yes, if you're reading this, you probably actually read the whole thing. Crazy. And YES, you will soon see my hair and glasses! Promise! Oh, and please answer my poll question, because it's for a very important study I'm doing. Or actually, it's just because I'm really curious. And aren't you glad that I finally figured out how to get pictures off the Internet to add to my posts so you can finally see some really interesting pictures of things like washing machines and people pushing buttons on washing machines? I knew you would be!