Dry, Dry, my darling

I killed my dryer.

I didn't mean to. I thought I was helping it out. I thought I was easing the burden on the old gal, who had logged nearly 15 years of service. Apparently, though, my actions drove her off the deep end.

For years, I've wanted a clothes line. Mainly, I wanted one for sheets. I love the smell of sheets fresh off a clothes line, and there is also the added chance that, as your sheets are flowing in the wind, a company shooting laundry commercials might happen by and ask to use your clothes line.

I finally got around to getting one, a retractable thingee that stretches out about 20 feet when in use, but does not serve as a hazard to oblivious sprinting children in the backyard when not in use. After I put my first set of sheets on the line, I came upstairs to where my wife and the dryer were. "I got the clothes line set up!"

"YOU WHAT?" screamed the dryer and jumped out the window. Either that or it just stopped heating the next time I fired it up. But I think we all know it felt cheated on.

I went online and starting doing some research on repairing dryers. I then said, "Oh, who am I kidding?" and told my wife we needed to go get a new dryer.

This had the potential of a conflict, as my wife and I have slightly different shopping styles. Her style involves research and price shopping and comparisons and speaking to people. Mine involves entering the store, picking out something in less time it takes to put on socks and hoping that, when they deliver it, the item (a) fits (b) works and (c) is a dryer and not, say, a table saw.

So needless to say, we did research, price shopped, talked to people. The first thing we found in the research is that you can spend a whole heaping helping of money on a dryer, and it can have some super-fancy things on it, including 56 - 56!!! - cycles, menu options in three languages and "theater lighting," whatever that is.

OK, here's my criteria for a dryer:

1. White

2. Kinda cube shaped.

3. Dries clothes

That's about as complicated as I wanted that stage of my laundry to get. I don't even need one language. I've pretty much mastered the two basic knobs that get it cranked up.

The one area we had to discuss somewhat was the size. Our old dryer was 5.8 cubic feet, which meant absolutely nothing to me until I saw a little conversion chart at the store that showed a 5.8 cubic foot dryer could dry four towels at a time, which explains why 10-12 towels often took several cycles to dry. Turns out, we needed to upgrade to the 7.0 cubic foot, which the chart said can dry 12 towels at a time, which means I can now try to dry 36 towels at once.

So we now have the new dryer installed and working like a champ. I have joined the refrain of others who have upgraded from an old dryer, having realized what an actual, effective dryer is like. One cycle? Really? That's all it takes? I had no idea how small and ineffective our old dryer was until now. The new one - so roomy. So warm. So ... effective. Hopefully, we'll get a good 15 years from this one as well. Just don't tell it I have a clothes line.