It all comes out in the wash

Moving Dad’s washer and dryer upstairs was a good idea. Disrupting his routine was not.

My boyfriend managed to get the appliances moved upstairs and hooked up in just one day, although, for Dad, it seemed to erase all memory of how to do laundry.

After everything was ready and he started the first load, Dad looked at him, through the top of his glasses like he does when he’s really serious and said, “OK, I get that this is the washer, but what’s the other big white thing do?    

The next day I marked the settings on both appliances with masking tape with arrows pointing to where the knobs needed to be. I blocked off the laundry shute, which has been the place for dirty clothes for the past 50 years, and clearly marked a laundry basket in the bedroom of where he should put the clothes that needed to be laundered.

Two hours later when I went back to check on him, Dad had already torn the duct tape and cardboard from the laundry shute and when I went to the basement to retrieve whatever was in there he had also decided to use it as a trash can. This time I hammered it shut with a big sign directing him to the clothes basket.

I can’t really blame him for throwing things, other than dirty clothes, down the laundry shute, as my siblings and I spent quality time throwing dolls and cars up and down the shute when we were little. I vividly remember my sister trying to stuff me into it when I was about 4, although she denies it ever happened.

I made another trip to the basement later in the day to be sure he wasn’t hauling his wet towels down there . The basement floor was full of water and it wasn’t from the appliances that had been moved upstairs. A new leak in the kitchen was the culprit, and the basement drain had decided not to accept any water.

The plumbers came and the basement drain was replaced because it was as old as the house and the kitchen sink was unplugged with items that didn’t belong in a drain. Apparently it was just too much for Dad to handle because the following day when I went to check on the basement drain with the plumber in tow, the new shiny plastic drain lid had been smashed into tiny pieces and a piece of wood was now sitting on top of the drain. He was trying to keep the water from coming into the basement.

The plumber looked like he was in shock and was trying to figure out what force of nature could have broken the drain lid like that. I hated to break it to him that it was Dad, who probably didn’t recognize the white plastic lid after seeing a metal one there for so many years. Let’s just hope he doesn’t take a sledge hammer to the appliances upstairs. Today he actually put his soiled hankerchiefs, socks and T-shirts into the laundry basket although when I got there he was in the basement staring at the empty wall where the appliances once where.

“What’s the matter Dad?” I asked him.

Looking through the top of his glasses he said, “someone stole my washer and dryer,” and then he started laughing. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, so I laughed too, and we went upstairs to start a load of laundry.