Why Do Things Keep Breaking?!?

Thanksgiving 2009 - The week before Thanksgiving, I taught a class on the evening of the 18th. I had not been feeling well and by the end of that class, I started losing my voice. Over the course of the next week I became increasingly more hoarse until finally, on Thanksgiving morning, I woke up with absolutely no voice. I called my parents to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving, and literally had to give the phone to Taylor to interpret. I decided at that point that I would not even try to speak again until Randal, Alicia & Riley arrived as planned on Friday. I'm not sure whether Taylor saw this as an inconvenience, or the best thing that could happen to a man, but in either event I was silent for the next two days.

We kept busy on Thursday and Friday preparing for our guests. There was plenty of laundry to be done - sheets, tablecloth, etc. - and since Taylor has actually asked "Which one's the washer?" in the past, I didn't even both asking for his help. As the loads progressed, it seemed to me that things were taking longer to dry than usual. I was mildly annoyed, but figured I was just being impatient (me? never!) and kept resetting the dryer.

We had plans for the Heide crew to come to dinner on Saturday, but RA&R came over on Friday so Alicia could get up with me bright and early Saturday to begin preparing the spread. Alicia and I spent most of the day in the kitchen and when the guests began arriving, we opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed the fruits of our labor.

One of our guests, Eileen, arrived with the most amazingly thoughtful, beautiful gift. Months before, Eileen had overheard us talking about how we would love to have someone paint a picture of our house. We had gotten the idea back when we were house hunting. Well, would you believe that Eileen had proceeded to take pictures of our house (while sitting inside her daughter's car incognito and hoping no one called the cops) and her gift to us that Thanksgiving was the most beautiful painting of our little house you could possibly imagine?!? We are forever grateful for her unbridled thoughtfulness!!

We ate, enjoyed one another’s company, and breathed a sigh of relief when the dishes were done and guests had gone home. Well, all but three. RA&R decided to stay an extra night since Randal was going to the Eagles game on Sunday and figured Alicia could drop him off at the Linc on her way home.

Alicia woke up early Sunday morning to run a load of laundry so everyone would have clean clothes to wear. A few hours later, as Randal was starting to get ready for the game, Alicia went down to check on the clothes in the dryer. They were soaking wet. From what I remember, Alicia had already reset the dryer at least once and could not for the life of her figure out why the clothes seemed to be just as wet as when she put them in. I sheepishly disclosed that I thought something was wrong with the dryer, but had hoped maybe it would go away if I pretended not to notice.

At this point Randal needed to get dressed and out the door to make it in time for kickoff. Just about everything he owned was wet, so we had to assess our options. We quickly realized he would have to borrow clothes from Taylor . . . but what would fit?! We pieced together an outfit that made Randal look like a little kid dressed in grown ups clothes, and sent them on their way.

Once they were gone, Taylor and I ran out the door to Lowes to start pricing new dryers. Yet again, we seemed to be struck with unbelievably fortunate timing. We walked down the first aisle and saw a floor model Samsung dryer on sale for $350, down from the MSRP of $1,070. We immediately bought it, and it was delivered the very next day.