Trials and Agitations

Please turn your red hymnals to hymn number 210, as we rise to sing: “The strife is o’er, the battle done; Now is the Victor’s triumph won; Now be the song of praise begun. Alleluia!”


Yesterday, we experienced the death of our washing machine. In the aftermath, I would like to share a few things I learned during the process:

1. There are videos on YouTube showing how to take your washing machine apart.

2. Those videos make it look much easier than it really is.

3. The entire top of my washing machine could be flipped up like a car hood.

4. Under the agitator are little screens for catching dirt and lint that may be in your laundry.

5. We have a lot of dirt, lint, rocks, gravel, hair pins and plastic tags in our laundry.

6. Removing the inner tub off the agitator spindle requires you whacking the agitator spindle with a big hammer and a protective block of wood while your husband tries to rip the tub out with his bare hands.

7. Your washing machine may have started building its own sandbar in the bottom of the outer tub.

8. This may be as close to the beach as I get this year.

9. When your husband is getting into the shower and you run into the room yelling, “It’s running all over the place!” and grabbing every towel in the bathroom, your husband will go ahead and take his shower.

10. A large load of laundry, completely submerged, equals about 15 gallons of water.

11. I can throw a large load of wet laundry out into a basket into the garage, try siphoning with a garden hose, retrieve pitchers and various water collection items from the kitchen, grab a bucket and the shop vac out of the garage, throw every towel we own on the floor, use the pitcher to bail out the washing machine, throw buckets of water out the front door, and eventually shop vac the rest of the water out of the washing machine, in less than five minutes.

12. When hearing his mother screaming for backup towels, a 7YO child will try to help. A 5YO child will not, because he wasn’t born first, and this is his way of getting back at you.

13. After all the action, your husband will emerge from the shower.

14. When hosing off various washing machine parts in the backyard, make sure you turn off the hose when you’re finished or your backyard will be flooded.

15. I really need to get a clothesline.

We’ll be picking out a suitable replacement for our nemesis machine this evening. I’m spending the day spinning out my partially soured laundry from yesterday and drying towels outside. Hope your Friday is a happy one, and may all your appliances behave themselves. But if they don’t, try to look at all the good quality family time you’re having!

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” James 1:2-3