Soooooooooo. I have been without a washing machine since the Monday before Thanksgiving. It’s beginning to seem like a really long time. We ordered the replacement before Thanksgiving Day. The economy is stagnant, no one is buying big ticket items, so I foolishly thought my big ticket washing machine would be an easy get.

Wrong. I was wrong, Really wrong. No washing machine is in sight. And the darn thing is manufactured in Iowa AND Iowa is just across the border from Wisconsin. So how hard can this be, folks?  Will someone please send a truck for my washer?

Or perhaps I shall be forced to set up some outdoor tubs – like the ones in the photo, the ones the historical re-enactment ladies use at Old World Wisconsin, the state’s historical outdoor museum. The tubs they use when they pretend it is summer and 1890 and indoor plumbing is non-existent.

Oh wait. I can’t do that. It’s mid-December, and we’re in the middle of a blizzard. Depending on how accurate the weather folk are in the area, we are likely to get eight inches of snow tonight and tomorrow, give or take two inches.

I’ve already been to the laundromat once. It’s not a horrible experience. Though it’s not at the top of my list either. Two hours and $21 to wash and dry eight loads of clothing and linen. (I had overnight guests over Thanksgiving, or it wouldn’t have been quite so bad.) And I even was treated to TV – a TV bolted to the ceiling so neither I nor anyone else in the place could turn down the volume or change the channel. The TV host was describing fast food horrors, sandwiches and such, complete with such high calorie and fat counts that they should satisfy a grown man’s food needs for several days.

Sorry,  I got a bit distracted. I’ll get back to the good part. Seems I’d planned on a quiet evening tonight. I worked with a new computer program for five solid hours today, and then wrapped Christmas presents for another two hours, so I was ready to relax with a nice book and a cup of Earl Grey tea. My husband, however, after surveying the silent laundry room, thought it would be a great time to move the machines and prep the walls for a quick paint job. After all, there would be no laundry to get in the way.

Seemed like a good idea – at the time. He turned off the water, or so he thought, and then disconnected the hoses. Except the water wasn’t completely turned off, and the first floor laundry (and the floor below) was well soaked by the time he wrangled with the shut off valve in the basement. Yuk. Water. Mess.

Hey, but it gets even a little better. (One of those nights when you can be glad you were in your own home, rather than being a fly on the wall of my laundry room – you really didn’t want to hear that conversation, did you?)

Jazz, whom we are now fondly calling the Velcro Vomit-er, sized up the situation before we did. She grasped the obvious quickly. She noted her litter box had some major flood damage. She couldn’t be expected to use that litter box, could she?

So, all things considered, it was an exciting evening.  And if we don’t get our snow dump, not only will I have to go to the laundromat with a lot of wet towels tomorrow, I’ll have to fork over cash for a plumber, too.

Maybe those old wooden laundry tubs wouldn’t be such a bad solution, after all.  Hmm.