Scott Versus the Washing Machine

I have washed many a load of laundy in my day. I used to be suspicously familiar with the driers next to my freshman dorm. But I’ll leave that story to Matt on his own weblog. I’m off tangent now, though. What I want to say is that this whole clothes washing thing has gotten ridiculously complicated. With Krisztina here I totally took for granted that my clothes would just show up clean in my closet every couple of weeks. Now I’m fighting The Man and His System every week just to avoid looking homeless.

First, let’s take a look at the control panel for my nice Whirlpool combination washer/drier:

Image 1: My washing machine control panel. I’d sooner get a 747 off the ground then stop myself from ruining my clothes with this thing.

What sort of nail-pulling masochist designed this thing? I don’t care what you say. If you’re using more than one of the washing selections than you’re just an arrogant bastard. “Hot” and “water” are the only two inputs needed to generate clean clothes, and I always use both of them. Let’s simplify this to a couple of buttons, OK?

Next, look at how the greedy swine at Procter and Gamble have designed their “helpful” detergent measuring cup:

Image 2: Not paying attention? Smother your clothes clean!

Before I realized that these assholes were actually providing a cup that measured for almost three whole washes, I was mounding detergent in that cup like like a fat person measures a cup of sugar. Oh, maybe that explains why my skin started burning every time I put on a fresh shirt.

Let’s be honest. These people specifically designed the cup so they could say that the box gets 30 uses when they know that your average bachelor wasn’t reading the measuring cup and ended up only getting 10 uses to a box. Its the same scam as is used with “ultra strength” dishwashing liquid. They can do this because bachelors don’t do shit like use “half squirts” of soap or read measuring cups we get in a box of Tide. We’ve got more important things to do like making grilled cheese sandwiches or watching chick aerobics on ESPN2.

And if the measuring cup and NASA control panel didn’t convince you of how confusing this whole clothes washing thing is, I present exhibit 3, the The Tide Fabric Care Network. Follow that link. I dare you. Not only has P&G resourced perhaps millions of dollars to build and maintain this network, but it is probably getting more fucking hits than the Centers for Disease Control. Now you’ve got an idea of how complex and important clean clothes are to Americans.

And just in case the Tide Fabric Care Network can’t solve all of your problems, there are helpful people at Whirlpool that can take your call when the panic attack hits:

Image 3: Afraid of washing your clothes threadbare? Call us!

I swear to God that I’m going to call these people some time and have them explain to me why the hell I need a total of 48 configuration possibilities (that’s not an exaggeration; do the math!) just to get the beer smell out of my jeans. And you know that number is there to help people with using the washer and not maintaining it. I’ll say here and now that no housewife in the history of the world has ever needed a support line for her washing machine so she could replace a belt or motor. So, I’m obviously not the first person to be a little perplexed about this machine’s operation.

And, lastly, I’ll close out this rant on the subject in which it began: the value of a girlfriend that handles the clothes.

Image 4: Clothes almost out of drier.

As you can see from this picture the drier is almost empty. But, do you see any underwear in there? No? Might you think that I have done that in another load? You ignorant slut. Of course I didn’t. I took the underwear out day-by-day and wore them. Now I have to do another load and the first load hasn’t even made it out of the drier yet. Oh, hell, here we go again.