Arrgh!

Ever have one of "those" days? An afternoon where everything seems to go wrong? Today was one of those days.

It started out innocuous enough, with me, running a load of laundry.  After running errands, it was time to start dinner plans. I had planned some grilled pork steaks, seasoned with Angelo's and some Penzey's Arizona Dreaming spice, and wrapped in bacon.

Those were left in the kitchen on plates on the stovetop, until I got the charcoal ready.  no big deal, right?  It didn't really occur to me that someone was watching.  Plotting, even, her nefarious deed.  

So I went out to turn over the laundry and start the dryer.

I opened the washer door after having to unlock it...(major clue here..).  The unlocked door opened and promptly dumped about half a drum full of water on the floor.  Crap!  After closing the door and cleaning up the mess, I figured the washer was out of balance and put it into the drain and spin cycle.  Except that it refused to drain and spin.  Arrgh!   I try several fixes to no avail.  I text DH, and keep trying, and set Monkey1 to wringing out the laundry...having forgotten about dinner, sitting there on the stovetop.  But somebody didn't forget...

DH gets home, and during that time of unloading gear, and explaining about the washer, I suddenly hear Monkey2 yelling "Bad girl! Bad girl! "  And now I can guess what has transpired.  I hustle out to where the dog is, lying under the living room table, with one hefty pork steak, formerly wrapped in bacon, on the rug beside her.  I grab it, and rush to the kitchen, hoping beyond hope that the remaining 4 pork steaks are unmolested.

It was not to be...the remaining two steaks has been de-bacon'd, and one had been well chewed.  Two were missing entirely!

As Shiloh had been busted, red-pawed so to speak, she was summarily exiled to her crate without any more dinner!  As if 2 pork steaks and bacon wasn't dinner enough!

Well, I cobbled together some other dinner and fed the family.  But that left the problem of a dead washer unresolved and me, rather bent out of shape over the whole thing.  Pricing repair parts ran from$100-$500, depending on exactly what was dead.  Pricing a new washer was $599, and they'd haul the dead one away.  Sort of a wash, eh?  Yeah bad pun I know.

But being the erstwhile plumber off the family I suggested to DH, that I take the thing apart and drain the water, and see what the cleanout trap had in it.  With his help I drained things and got a whopping 37 cents out of the trap.  While he went to scrub the trap out, I decided to shine my light in the drain port.  Hhmmm...what is the little hot pink string I espy?  After pulling on it with a pair of pliers, I successfully extracted this!  

Yes, that is a 6" piece of 1/4" rope, that was jammed in the pump impeller!  We put the washer back together, and I decided to run a cleaning cycle to test if it was going to work. 

YAY! IT WORKS!  It was such a relief to fix that washer.  I sure would rather fix it than spend $600 to replace it!  And free repairs are the BEST!

She doesn't even look remorseful, does she?