Washing Machine Meet Vacuum

Option One: drive to the Snoqualmie River, throw my clothes off the waterfall, and then beat my clothes on rocks, all to wash them.

Option Two: Throw clothes in bucket, stir with stick, send clothes through a washing beetle, beat them with a bat, and hang them up to dry.

Option Three: The glorious hunk of metal, that drowns, suds, and spins clothes at puking speeds.

Option three please! Except....

The machine is only good at one thing, washing clothes. It does not provide electricity like waterfalls. It does not provide anything useful, other than good hygiene.

And it's that good hygiene that has me vacuuming out the washer.

Okay, I know I'm not that crazy. Nor, do I have any family members that vacuumed their front lawns, scrubbed lawn gnomes, or took cleaning to out of control proportions. So where did my need of vacuuming cleaning appliances come from?

"Oh, no!" I cried when I opened the washing machine lid. My clothes were covered in soft brown schmutz, as if something exploded in the washer.

"What'cha do?" Chris asks concerned.
"Nothing. It's fine. I just hope you didn't plan on doing laundry the next two days. I'll clean it up," I tell Chris.

"What happened?"
"I don't know, there's something all over my clothes!"
I remove jeans, covered in brown lint, funny, I don't anything brown. A few more items are grabbed, and there is the explosion culprit.

Above our washing machine is a shelf stacked and packed with boxes, stuff we don't want in the living room, and a fly swatter. There, in the washer, lies a white paper tin like wrapper. Christmas lights. I look up at the shelf, one, two, th...

No three, just two empty Christmas light boxes.

"I just washed a Christmas light box!"
"Bummer," was Chris's response. Bummer indeed. How the hell do I get wet cardboard off my clothes?

The lint trap!

All clothes into the dryer!

Now, what to do about the cardboard plastered on the side of the washer? Dry stuff flakes off the sides right?

The next morning, armed with the vacuum, complete with newly rescued filter, I try to get the fuzz chunks out of there. The hose only works when it is not bent. Meaning, one side of the washer still had fuzz on it. If I don't get this out, Chris is going to be a sad panda.

Picking up the vacuum, and lying it horizontal between the dryer and washer and stretched the hose into the bottom of the washer. Oh, boy. Please don't fall. Please don't fall.

Now, to the dryer. The lint trap is overflowing with lint, and cardboard. Lint oozed out of the trap, the opening, and everywhere lint could possibly be. Shake of the shirt, out comes cardboard. Shake of the sock, more cardboard.

Finally, all clothes are out of the dryer. There, at the bottom of the dryer was bits of cardboard. You would think, it was rabbits creating this many cardboard pieces.

All I could think of is how Donna Reed, June Cleaver, and Martha Stewart are very disapointed in the new age of housework. Oh, look, more cardboard pieces.