Adventures in Housekeeping

The first week in my apartment, I resolved to vacuum the whole place.

The Seamstress had just bought a new vacuum. Very shiny, with a retractable cord. I was enamored of it because vacuum cords are the bane of my existence. I happily vacuumed the apartment, pulling the entire cord out of the vacuum.

Disaster struck when I tried to retract the cord. For the cord would not retract.

Understandably, I panicked. "I am a horrible person who has just ruined my brand-new roommate's brand-new vacuum and I deserve a terrible fate and why am I that person?" I sobbed over the lifeless vacuum cord. "Oh, WHY?"

In a final act of desperation, I began to feed the cord, centimeter by centimeter, into the cord retractor. It would not go in.

In a final final act of desperation, I hit the cord retractor button one more time. This time it worked, saving my honor, pride, and probably also soul from a terrible fate.

A few days later, I found myself out of clothes. It had come time to do that which I dreaded most: laundry.

This may surprise you, but although I had folded and unloaded many a load of laundry, I had never before sorted, loaded, or chosen washing or drying settings for one.

"Did your mother never teach you?" you may ask, aghast.

The truth of the matter is that my mother tried to teach me, but it never quite worked out the way she was hoping.

MOM: Colors. Whites. Light. Dark. Hot. Cold. Delicate. Sturdy.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: So doing laundry is essentially an episode of Sesame Street?

MOM: ...

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Or since we're Jewish... Shalom Sesame.

When I moved out, my mother was very concerned about my lack of absorption of her lessons in laundry. I wasn't, because helloooo. Age of Information. I could just look it up on the internet.

Coincidentally, the washer and dryer in our apartment were brand spanking new. They had moved to the apartment after I had. La Petite had purchased them just days before and they had washed only a few loads.

I emptied my laundry basket and sorted it according to the internet.

So far so good.

I took my first load to the washing machine and put it inside. After some minor confusion about how laundry soap works, I selected the proper settings, poured in the soap, and turned on the washing machine. It started humming, and.

And...nothing.

I frowned in concern. Little though I knew about the machines of washing, I was pretty sure I remembered immediate cascades of water in our machine at home. There was no waiting, and there was no humming.

"But," I consoled myself, "this is a different brand of washing machine. It probably just needs a minute to warm up."

After five minutes: "It just needs ten minutes to warm up."

After ten minutes: "It just needs fifteen minutes..."

After twenty minutes: "Half an hour..,"

After an hour: "I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON WHO JUST BROKE MY ROOMMATE'S BRAND-NEW WASHER AND DRYER."

In desperation, I poured through the internet, looking for information about humming-no-water washing machines. By all accounts, this was not a good situation to be in.

"The machine was working fine yesterday," I sobbed as I read one dire account of broken washing machines after another. "La Petite did a ton of laundry! Why, oh why, do I ruin everything I touch?"

After appropriate hand-wringing and feelings of wretchedness, it occurred to me to ask La Petite if there might be something I, the laundry novice, was doing wrong.

I sent her a text telling her I could only get the washing machine to hum. Was there some trick to using it?

A few minutes later, La Petite responded.

La Petite: Is the water on?

...

Awkward Mormon Girl: It is now.