Bug Boiling

You should call me a whiner if I complain even once about washing clothes without hot water.  I use a washing machine, not lye and rocks in a stream out back.  The washing machine works but there’s no hot water.  So far no one’s looked me up and down and said, “Get away, you dingy-clothed woman!”  No one suspects I’m a cold-water washer.

There might be reasons to be concerned about my limited water options.  I’ve watched Discovery Channel stories about microscopic bugs which thrive in your bedding.  These bugs are happy to surf through the wash, spin and rinse cycles on my pillowcases.  Their only fear is that of hot washer water. 

I can’t see these bugs, so I don’t believe.  We have plenty of bugs I can see and believe.  Our spiders downstairs are big enough to make tough subcontractors, tattooed twenty-five year-olds and teenaged skateboarders scream like little girls.  Big bugs don’t hide from hot water.

I’ve got more important things to worry about besides microscopic bugs, so I gave up on the hot water.  Giving up anything bothers you at first.  You look at the spigot and get annoyed it’s stuck in the “off” position.  You look at the perfect replacement spigot sitting on a shelf not more than a foot away and focus whatever anger you have that day on that little piece of metal. 

After a while, you forget.   What was wrong with the spigot in the first place?  You’re tempted to turn it on and see if it’s really broken.  Then you forget even to do that.  Your clothes are clean.  You’re too busy comforting scared skateboarders about big bugs to worry about the microscopic ones taking a cold shower in your washer.

My washer and dryer live in the downstairs bathroom.  The downstairs is the place where if you want people to feel sorry for you, you give them a little tour.  It’s cold, full of the biggest bugs, and looks like someone destroyed everything in sight then left for lunch and killed themselves.  There’s dust and garbage and bad smells everywhere. 

The brave subcontractor, Kevin, said he was willing to fix it.  I’m not sure Kevin really wanted to spend his days down there in the depths of hell, but he’s married to Kristine.  Kristine and Charlie have been sparring each other for over a decade.  I’ve seen Kristine full-contact spar big, ugly men and make them cry.  The only person I’ve ever seen knock the wind out of her is Charlie.  Kevin doesn’t do Tae Kwon Do.  I suspect this might be the reason Kevin’s so agreeable.

Whatever it takes to get the downstairs back to looking like part of a developed, civilized nation is fine with me.  There’s a big hole cut out of the drywall open to the crawl space.  There’s a shower put in by an idiot sea-sick blind person.  The walls leaked rain from the outside for years before we started paying this mortgage.  Take one look at the toilet and you’ll think you have to hurry back outside to pay for your gas.

Kevin started in by creating and texturing walls.  When I go downstairs to do laundry, I see tools moving around too quick to gather dust.  It doesn’t look like the homeless person’s camp under the I-5/I-84 overpass anymore.

We were about to ask Kevin another favor and ask him to give us hot washer water when the dryer went out.  Washing clothes in cold water is civilized compared to trying to dry damp clothing in even damper Oregon. 

After two weeks of a having a good excuse not to do laundry, we decided to do something about it.  We didn’t have to get a new washer but we knew as soon as we got a new dryer, the washer would die.  “Let’s get smaller ones,” Charlie said.  “They’ll make the bathroom look bigger and we can take them when we sell this dump.” 

I’m a good wife: I’ll submit.  Charlie goes to Home Depot so much he knows when they get in a new product.  He walked me straight into his home away from home and right over to the washers and dryers.  He pointed to a small set of front-loading, energy-efficient, ones.  “These are cheap and they’re Canadian.  They must be good.”

I’m not picky.  I’m thinking more of my future hot water when the new washer gets hooked up.  I wonder if my clothes will be bright and spotlessly white.  I wonder if other people will comment.  I wonder if the microscopic bugs will scream when they meet with their untimely death.

We stand in front of the appliances and wait for someone to help us.  We waited longer than it took to drive over.  I noticed an older employee talking to a younger employee standing next to the refrigerators, not ten feet away.  The older employee was talking and talking and the younger guy stood and stared off in the distance.  I walked over, anticipating the death of future dead bugs. 

The older guy jumped and came over to Charlie and the Canadian appliances.  We told him we wanted them and he told us about how we could get them delivered for free, maybe, or maybe not.  He was trying to entice us but he wasn’t telling us anything definite.

In the middle of negotiating our appliance purchase and delivery, he said, “I own my own real estate company.”

Wrong people to brag to, I thought.  Charlie responded with, “Will you recycle the old appliances if you deliver these?”

The older guy ran off to the younger employee.  “If he’s so successful,” I told Charlie, “why is he working at Home Depot?”

“Usually people with low self-esteem brag about owning their own business,” Charlie said.  “Most people see right through that.  You’re working at Home Depot.  Enough said.”

He returned and said, “We’ll do it.”

“Do what?” Charlie asked.  “Free delivery or free recycling or both?”

“We’ll take care of that for you.”

“How much?”

The older employee left again.

“Like we weren’t going to ask how much?” Charlie said. “Look.  He’s annoying the other employee.  You can tell the other guy’s ready to clock him.”

I looked over and the other employee looked impatient, to say the least.

“We’ll take care of you,” he said when he returned again.

“At what price?”

“I’m getting to that,” he said.  “We’ll take care of you.”  He ran back to the other employee and ran back again. 

“Is it going to cost for delivery or not?” Charlie asked.

“I’m old,” he said.  “I’m not deaf.  I’m getting to that.”

I noticed the other employee disappeared.  This guy’s bugging everyone.

“It’s our normal $55 delivery charge,” he said, “but we’ve got a deal for you.  We’ll take away your old appliances for a penny.”

We didn’t want it delivered in the first place.  He was the one telling us it’d be free, maybe.  We’re in here every other day.  We have a big-ass honkin’ truck.  Delivery isn’t a problem.  And we recycle.

“It’ll be ready to pick up tomorrow,” he said.  “You guys buy fixer-uppers?  I can get you one for a deal.  I have some good ones every now and then.”

We’re not waiting for this guy to find us our next jewel. 

“I had one available off Terwilliger Blvd,” he said.  “It sold for $185,000.  When the owners fixed it up they sold it for $220,000.  The back yard was so overgrown you couldn’t even see out the window.  Big picture window and all you could see was overgrown brush.”

“You have our name,” Charlie said, “except you spelled it wrong.”  We left without correcting him.

“His old Spice aftershave wasn’t helping the climate in there,” Charlie said.  “Sorry, I had to leave.  We’ll have clean clothes tomorrow.  Hot water, too, I promise.”

I can last one more day.  Besides, there’s much to prepare for with the coming demise of freeloader microscopic bedding bugs.

A little help? [] 10:22:45 PM