I paused in the doorway of the laundry room, heaving with anger. I regarded the dryer (stupid dryer!) through tear stained eyes. And then I threw the screwdriver in my hand as hard as I could at the dryer and ran out of the room. I HATE YOU! I screamed, as the screwdriver found it's mark. Running out of the room, I could hear the sound of the elderly lady who helps me keep house, trying her best to calm me down. Bless her, she was trying so hard, and I was having none of it.
I took myself to my room and plopped down into my easy chair. Well, that was embarrassing. I chided myself for the loss of control, especially in front of someone else.
She followed me slowly up the stairs and sat down in the other easy chair. I am so sorry, I said. I was completely out of control.
She gave me some words of comfort, Don't worry about it. It's OK. You're human, she said, but I still felt bad.
I had known this morning that there was going to be a faceoff with the dryer. I had had several conflicts with the machine over the last several months. I was tired of it. The first time the belt had come off, I had called a repair man. He came and looked at it late on a Friday night and told me it would cost $3 hundred dollars to fix it. Three. hundred. dollars. Plus tax. I told myself, that for not much more than that, I could just by a new dryer. I told him that, too, and he agreed that it wasn't worth it for this old thing, and he went home to Friday dinner with his family.
After he left I thought about it and decided to give it a go myself. So I looked up the model number and ordered the parts from...where else...Amazon.
I pulled up a You tube video and watched it about a thousand times, while waiting for the parts to arrive. It didn't look too difficult.
The day came, and I got everything ready. New belt. Check. Screwdrivers. Check. Phone, serving as instruction manual and flashlight. Check. Jar to hold all the screws and clips. Check.
Unplug. Screws out of the lint filter. Take that out and put it somewhere where it won't fall on you Flathead to pop up the top. Lift the lid. Unhitch the electrical. Unscrew the screws that hold the front on to the sides. Remove the clips. Lift the front off and set aside.
Remove broken belt from where it has fallen, get the new one out and loop it around the barrel, grooves in the rubber facing down.
And now the hard part. Get your old body down on the floor, and get the belt through the pulley and onto the motor, while holding the drum up with your shoulder. And don't rock the machine too hard, or the top, just resting against the wall, will come crashing down with a very loud BANG!
Try again with the belt around the pulley...all the time holding up the barrel and watching the video , just to make sure you are doing it right, and yes, by golly YES, You've got it!
Now to reverse it all.
Front back on, lining it up with the drum...only of course, this ends up almost being the most difficult part, because you have to lift and then set the frame into two little holes, two miniscule little holes on the bottom front. Mind you, the top keeps crashing down, and you have to hold up the barrel, too. You are ignoring the cuts on your fingers from the too sharp front piece, and the bruising from the continual crashing of the top down onto your forearms. You make a note to yourself that next time you will put something up there, anything, to keep it from falling on you. (Next Time...What am I thinking? Surely there will NOT be a next time...) but you disregard that thought, because it's happening, you have the front in place, barrel aligned with the door, clips back on, screws holding those back on, re hitch the electrical, lower the lid, put the lint filter back in, last two screws, and plug.her.in. And it works. And you are satisfied. You did it! You are walking on air! Warm, tumble dry air, until...
The next morning. I turned on the dryer, with a happy grin, expecting to hear the hum of a happy dryer and instead heard an awful moan, and a decisive lack of tumbling. My happy grin faded pretty quickly. I opened up the door to a dryer of wet clothes.
No, no no no NO!
With a very heavy sigh I got out my tools and repeated yesterday's performance, right up to installing the new belt, which was laying in ribbons on the bottom of the dryer. I didn't have one on hand. Hadn't expected to be doing this again so soon.
Back I went to Amazon. Ordered another belt, along with some rollers and a new tension pulley.
This time, I watched some additional videos about how to replace those, as well as the belt.
Took it all apart, remembering to put something up top to keep the crashing to a minimum. Put on the new rollers. The new tension pulley took a little time to figure out. I kept trying to make it stand up, and it kept falling down. Finally I watched the video more closely and saw that it needed jamming into a groove on the bottom of the dryer. So I jammed it, and it stayed. I put the whole thing back together and was able to breathe easy. For about a week.
Another day. Another moaning, screeching dryer. I got out the tools. By now this was becoming old hat. Unplug. Unscrew. Grab Cascade from the shelf and jam it in the top to keep it from falling on me. Unhitch. Lift off. Change out. Put it all back. I could do it in less than 30 minutes, without much struggle, except getting the front on.
Four more times in the following weeks, I went through this weekly ritual. It was really getting old. I was thinking of getting a new dryer. And then things seemed to settle, even though the pulley was making an ominous racket. Every time I turned it on, I wondered how long it would be before I was groveling on the laundry room floor again.
Three months went by.
Sunday afternoon into Monday, I had the Baby Grands, my affectionate name for my two granddaughters, for an overnight stay. I had washed some of their things, and opened the dryer to toss them in. Shut the door on the dryer and hit the button. Loud humming. Um...what? I crept up to the dryer and opened up the door, hoping against hope that I was wrong.
Sadly I wasn't. The dryer was on the blink again.
I quickly unloaded the wet clothes and got to work. My helper was here, and asked if she could help, and I said sure. Two people on this job is always better than one.
Had it apart in no time. Especially since last time I had skipped a couple of steps putting it back together. No screws in the lint filter. I had lost one of the side clips, and the screw holding it together was missing on one side.
The belt was in shreds. I had an extra, so I commenced to get it on, quickly, checking that the rollers and tension pulley looked okay. Tried to get the belt through the pulley and ran into problems. It just wouldn't go. The pulley wouldn't stay and the belt wouldn't go through. I pulled up my You tube history and spent fifteen minutes scrolling through old videos trying to find the one I had been watching three months ago, to find out what I was doing wrong. Found it. Watched it. Didn't help. By now I had been on my knees groveling on the floor for an hour. It just.wasn't.working. The top kept crashing down on my helper. I had forgotten to put the Cascade up as a blocker. I was sweating. Losing patience, as I always do with mechanical things. I hate mechanical things. We just don't get along.
Started cussing. Was embarrassed about the cussing. Started cussing some more. And more loudly. And then I just totally lost it.
As I sat in my easy chair, in the post tantrum quiet, I quietly asked God's forgiveness.
And as I sat there, eyes closed, oblivious to the goings on around me, I had a vision.
It was that tension pulley, standing up straight and tall, exactly how it was supposed to be inside the dryer. And I knew I had to have another go. I knew what to do.
I waited until everyone was gone. I went downstairs. Got down on my knees, lifted the barrel with my shoulder. Positioned the pulley, exactly how I had seen it in my head. And it stayed. I pulled the belt through it, around the motor, and then had the whole thing reassembled in less than ten minutes. I turned it on and heard the glorious hum of the barrel as it turned with the belt. After about ten seconds of squeaking it settled down and worked perfectly without a hitch.
What did I learn from this whole episode?
1.) Having a backup is handy. This goes for anything, whether it's paper towels, TP, or dryer belts.
2.) If you are going to have a tantrum, make sure you are alone, so there are no witnesses.
3.) Even though I deserved to be sent to my room by the Lord for a time out, instead He blessed me a hundred little ways this week. He really loves me, he really does! Who am I, that He pours out His love on me? I certainly don't deserve it, but I am thankful and overwhelmed by His mercy.
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