Goodbye My Friend, It's Hard to Die...But Your Replacement Will Be Delivered Between 9 and 4 on Monday

Nearly twenty years ago, my husband and I laid the cornerstone of our domestic life together by making our first major appliance purchase together. In the early days of 1991, we bought our Kenmore washer and dryer set.

Like salt and pepper shakers, forever married, they have sat side by side in our various homes for almost two decades. They have survived four moves. They have waited idly in the basement in one home while we waited for the washer/dryer pair left by the previous owners to die. They were happy to get back to work once those behemoths finally died.

They washed hundreds of cloth diapers for two baby boys without complaint, giving a whole new meaning to "heavy duty".

Those are their good points.

They have bad points too.

They are loud...they have made many quiet evenings not so quiet.

 They use LOTS of energy.

 And water.

They mischievously vibrate across laundry rooms untold times even when specifically told not to.

Secretly, even considering their good points, I have prayed for their demise. After the first decade, I couldn't take their bad points. And all that advertising for new high efficiency flashy colored metallic finish laundry machines was more than I could resist.

But these guys live forever.

They just wouldn't stop. They kept on washing and drying, in their loud, energy inefficient, boring white ways.

Until yesterday.

I smelled it...the burning of some unknown rubberized component. Eeew!

I felt the extreme heat of the dryer's top. Ouch!

I opened the door and the jeans cried, "Save us!"

We all backed away and waited, me silently praying.

Later Hubby assessed the damage and determined the costs of parts and labor, considering the age of the dryer, outweigh the long term cost of my trip to Lowe's today. So, prayers have been answered. And of course, now money will be spent.

Happy Mother's Day to me!