Except during American Football Season, which pretty much goes without saying.

To be honest, I don't feel like writing much of anything today. It was grey and rainy this morning, cleared up briefly while I went to my Portuguese class, and now it's grey and rainy again.

Which is rather a shame, since if forgot to buy smokes while I was out earlier.

Have been washing the bed linen and some towels. All. Day. Long. The actual washing went OK-- which made me nervous, as I accidentally started the cycle just before I had to leave for class this morning, so I spent the entire three hours I was gone worrying about what I would find when I got back.

Which, thankfully, was nothing in particular, particularly not a flood. Which is good, but I won't be doing it again if I can help it. It isn't good to tempt fate.

Then, after I'd reheated the last of last week's soup for lunch, and made a salad to go with it, and ate the lot, I put the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on. It worked, which was (again) very good, but that meant that I had to wait to run the clothes dryer because I wasn't really in the mood to fry all the fuses and throw all the circuits and whatever. So there was that.

And then, when I finally was able to put the wet laundry in the dryer and actually turn it on, the dryer decided to go all Prima Donna on me. It will go about it's drying for ten minutes or so, then go into "There's something wrong with me, so I'll just turn the laundry over and over with no added heat so no actual drying gets done" Mode. Which it does occasionally, but usually not until it has been running for at least half an hour or so.

The real pisser about "There's something wrong etc." Mode, is that there is no alarm or buzzer or other audible notification that the dryer is no longer drying. Perhaps it did once, when it was young, about twenty years ago, but those days are long gone. And it doesn't stop running, either, so it sounds like it's doing its duty, even if it's not. The only indication that the damn thing has developed the sulks is a rather nifty little red lightening bolt that lights up. Which doesn't seem all that threatening, really. Given that we're talking about a clothes dryer here, a lightning bolt ought mean that every thing is just blazing along, don't you think?

I did. In fact, it took me WEEKS to figure out why the dryer wasn't actually drying much. Oh, sometimes it would. Or it would dry things half-way. And I would get sick of it, and let it rest, or pull out the clothes and drape them around the apartment where it would take them days to dry the rest of the way because our apartment is so damnably damp all the time.

Hell probably isn't hot, people. It's humid.

And then I broke down and read the fucking manual, which my cute as a button little old Landlord has saved in a black leather binder, along with manuals for seventeen other appliances, several of which I can't find and aren't on our inventory. And, after thanking God for that year in Germany and my prescience in taking German classes as long as I was there, I discovered that the little lightning bolt means Mr. Dryer is less than happy and refuses to work any longer until you fix things. Mr. Dryer is unionized, I guess.

I also discovered that one should not become Alarmed at the amount of Lint that one might find in the Lint Strainer. All Clothes have Lint, and we don't even notice it fluffing off and floating around in the very Air around us, and if one weighs the amount of Lint against the amount of Laundry, one will see it's not very much Lint at all.

Which is rather reassuring.

But back to the lightning bolt.

In fact....

Brief pause while Dilettante runs to the kitchen and peers at dryer.

Damn Dryer.

I just saw the little red lightning bolt, which means I had to open it up (from the bottom. The little button that's supposed to pop open the door-- sort of like the little button that pops open the trunk on some cars-- no longer works properly), clean the lint trap, empty the reservoir that collects the water extracted from your clothes, and slam the door shut. (I'm not being mean here-- if you don't, it won't stay closed. Sometimes it opens anyway while drying, which stops the whole process. Of course, you can hear when that happens, so I just give it a good boot in the door and it starts again. But I digress.)

(Although not as far as I have done in the past.)

Right. Where were we? Lint, water, door... and then, we wait. You are supposed to be able to turn it back on, it will sense that it has been tended to, and turn it's little dial back to where it left off and start again. Sort of like a printer is supposed to do when you change its cartridge or clear a paper jam. And, no, I won't get started on that at this point.

I assume that it did do this, at one time. Now, it doesn't. So you have to let it cool down a bit (along with the still-wet laundry therein), and start it up again from the beginning in ten minutes or so.

It's frustrating, but it could be worse. When it's not raining or obscenely humid, it does the whole "Help Me!" thingy far less frequently. And at least I HAVE a clothes dryer. I haven't done for over five years now, and given the general dampness, it's a damn good thing we do, even if it does take forever, sometimes.

Poor thing. It's just old, methinks.

It's not as if it hates me, like plumbing and all the appliances connected thereto.

And if it does, I don't want to know about it.

Let me keep my illusions.

As hard as it is.

That damn thing just did it again.