Thursday, April 28, 2005

Eurothrash

For 11 years we have lived in an apartment building with communal laundries. For me, this has meant saving every dollar coin that came my way to use in the washers and dryers. It has meant going down two flights of stairs to look for a vacant machine, load the washer, unload the washer, load the dryer, unload the dryer, engage in barneys with my neighbours and stave off passing snowdroppers. It has meant engraving my name on four dozen pegs.

So the piece-de-resistance of our renovation was to be the installation of a washer dryer in the new Bunnings kitchen, Pommie style.
Such things are common in Europe and we finished up with an Italian number with the brand name Thor. For weeks we have been amusing each other with Thor jokes: “I’m thaw but I’m not thorry” and “I’m thaw too but I’m thatisfied”.

But the Thor has had the last laugh. The first plumber we contracted to install it took one look and fled the scene. The second did a bodgy job and when we attempted our first wash the kitchen cupboard filled up with water. The Thor’s next trick was to dance boisterously around the kitchen to its own bump and grind musical accompaniment.

At our next laundering attempt we both stood peering nervously at the Thor which sneered back, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

We were right to be afraid. Euro washing machines have very long cycles. The German one we had in Kuching took days to agitate, rinse and spin. The Thor wash cycle lasts 90 minutes. Our difficulty was figuring out how to get it to move on to the drying cycle and our efforts only succeeded in putting our clothes through the wash three times. That’s three times 90 minutes. At 1.30 a.m. the Thor was still boogeying around the room, the clothes were turning into mulch and Right Foot and I, bleary-eyed and anxious, were huddled in the bedroom awaiting the knock of the angry upstairs neighbour.

We were thaw all right but definitely not thatisfied.