Washing machine woes

Question: Tell about a frustrating experience you've had on washday. . . .with the machine. . . .the outcome of the clothes, etc.

This is a funny question. Washday is usually a simple, wash a couple of loads, dry them, fold them and put them away. Many years ago, that is not so true. I guess that is where this question came from. But I do have a couple of stories of washing day woes.

When my mom was in the hospital after giving birth to my younger sister, Kris, my dad and I decided to do the laundry. At that time we had the old fashion wringer washer. For those of you that have never dealt with this kind of washer, I will describe it. It has this big tub that you fill with water and put the clothes in. It then agitates the clothes quite like a top loading washer does today. But it does not rinse or spin dry the clothes the same. Then we had to drain the soapy water out, refill the tub with clean water often more than once to get all the soap out of the clothes. After that we had to get the water out of the clothes. The washer had a wringer attached to the top. We had to pull the clothes up out of the rinse water and run them through the wringer. I always thought this was the fun part and wanted to be part of it. Now I was 10 at the time and had helped my mom many times with this aspect of the wash. So while Dad was turned doing other things, I was pushing the clothes through the wringer. Now we were lucky enough (I think) to have an electrified wringer instead of one you had to crank. Mom had always said to smooth the clothes out as best as I could rather than just stuffing them into the wringer. So I was in that process when all of a sudden the wringer ate my fingers. Yipes! The wringer was quite powerful as it pulled my small, 10 year old fingers and then hand and then wrist into its mechanism. Thank goodness Dad was close and heard my screams for help. He turned and stopped the wringer from eatimg me up completely. Whew.

Now understand this was not really painful. Just scary. The hard part was getting the top of the wringer to let go enough to get my arm out. I had jammed the mechanism from opening up like it is supposed to when it stalls like that. There was a way to back up the wringer, so after trying to get the arm out one way, Dad put it into reverse. Ouch again as the machine started spitting my arm back out the other way.

I was free finally. I was in tears. Dad was frustrated and telling me to go upstairs and he would finish the wash. I don't remember specifics in the way he told me to go, but I don't think he was too nice about it all.

When all was said and done, I had a bruise that started just past my knuckles and ran up past my wrist. But I didn't have to help hang the clothes out on the clothesline that day, or get them in later. Dad was "swell" about all that. Mom didn't let me help with the wringer washer ever again after that.

As stated we had to dry our clothes on the clothesline outside. Well we did that outside during the summer anyway. We lived in Idaho and in the winter it was hard to sludge through the snow drifts to hang the clothes outside, so we did it inside. There were some days when the sun was pretty that we did hang them out during the winter. That was hard. Remember the clothes were wet. By the time we were through hanging them up, our fingers were turning blue. Plus when we got them in later that day, they were often just frozen solid. We had to take them inside and drape them over chairs and stuff until they thawed, finished drying and then we could fold them and put them away. We did have a make-shift clothesline downstairs next to the washer that would allow us to dry our clothes during the winter. They did not dry very fast down there, nor did they smell as nice.

One other rememberance of a washing day that was interesting was on June 30, 1970, I was two weeks over due with my first child. I had a doctor's appointment the next morning and we were going to a friends house that evening for dinner. I thought I should get our laundry done. So I spent the morning washing all our clothes at the laudromat, since we did not have a washer or dryer yet. Gil was working, so I did this by myself. I had been taking only one or two batches, as I was very big and couldn't handle more than that. That day I loaded our little VW bug up with a couple of baskets full of laundry. Off I went. All went well there. I then brought back the wet clothes and hung them all out on the line, as it was a warm and beautiful day in San Jose.

I still felt okay after that, so I cleaned the bathroom and mopped the kitchen floor. I rested a while after all that. In the afternoon, I went out and got all the clothes off the clothesline and folded them and put them away. I then spent time going through the nursery looking at all the cute clothes and things we had for the baby.

I had a full day.

When Gil got home, we got in our car and drove from San Jose to Redwood City to our friends home. We had dinner there and then sat around the table playing a board game. I was uncomfortable to say the least. I had done a lot that day. I could barely sit still.

Now these friends had had a baby in March of that year. At one point the huband, Alex, said, "Peggy, you are in labor." Well, first baby and all, I did not know what to expect, but I figured I would know if I was in labor or not. "No I'm not," I said. He said I have been watching and timing you. You keep squirming on a regular basis. You are now at 5 minutes apart. I think you need to go to the hospital.

They ushered us out of the house. I told Gil I was fine and that I was just tired from working so hard all day. "Let's go home and get a good nights rest. I have to see the doctor at 9 a.m. tomorrow." So that is what we did. We drove right by the hospital, which was half way home. All was fine.

I woke up about 6 a.m. the next morning with sharp pains. Okay, now I figured I was in labor. They were not close together, so I went to the appointment as scheduled. They sent me immediately to the hospital. I had Don several hours later. Alex knew I was in labor before I did. Funny story. I still giggle over that one.