Our washer called in sick

Our family seems to suffer from weekend syndrome. Every time Saturday rolls around someone either “frows up,” has a violent cough, and/or runs a fever. When I was a kid, I was much smarter about illness and made every effort to plan my afflictions so they would occur during school hours.

Brandon and I went to a Leap Year party Friday night with our friends Scott and Jill and Stacey and Jeff. The party was fun and I’m glad we got out of the house when we did, because things went south from there.

I got an early start on laundry Saturday morning. I know it’s strange that I love to get up at an unholy hour and start household chores, but honestly I’m useless after 10:00 a.m. I was happily bringing down my second load, when my whites started to spin out of control. By the time I reached the laundry room, the machine had walked itself out of alignment with the dryer. I wasn’t washing bricks or anything particularly heavy, so I couldn’t just rearrange the load and slam the lid; which is my usually solution. I yelled for Brandon, who pulled the washer completely apart and promptly came down with the flu.

Brandon spent the rest of the day on the couch and I had to bribe the dog with peanut butter to get him to walk around the washing machine bone yard to get to the outside door.

I planned to make soup for dinner, and Brandon thought that sounded good. When it was time to eat, he didn’t want the soup, but did manage to choke down a Rice Krispie treat or two. During dinner, Meredith came down with a condition I hadn’t heard of before, “spicy foot.” Merdi refuses to sit in her booster seat and has to sit on her knees to reach the table. As we were finishing, she told me her foot hurt. Assuming her foot was asleep; I asked her if it felt tingly. She said, “No. It feels spicy.”

I hope everyone is on the mend soon, and that includes my washing machine.