A COOL DRYER PLACE

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I am fairly certain that it is the only time I have said, “Pull my feet – I’m getting lightheaded.” I am completely certain it is the only time I said it while upside down behind a dryer.

This little adventure began about a week ago, when I was in the middle of doing laundry. I had just placed a sopping wet pile of clothes in the dryer and started it when, after about two seconds, it just quietly quit. There was no popping, cracking, exploding, whimpering or anything. It just stopped. I immediately went into dryer repair mode. I opened the door and shut it several times. I spun the knob a few rotations. I pressed the start button with varying degrees of pressure. I even opened up the washing machine lid. I’m not really sure why I did that, but it seemed like the right thing at the time.

After deciding I was not going to be able to trick the dryer into self-fixing, I pulled the dryer out from the wall and got my tools. Time to go work. Socket set, flashlight, screwdriver — I was a blurring flash of manliness.

When I got behind the dryer, I proceeded to take off the bolts that secured the back plate. The problem would be behind there, I surmised. I was almost done when my wife made the recommendation to, oh, I don’t know, unplug the big block of metal before I proceeded to probe around on its electrified insides. Good thinking.

Once the plate was free, I gazed at the back of the dryer and could not find a giant “WORK/DON’T WORK” switch, thereby stumping me. Time to a call a professional.

When the mechanic came to the house, I noticed he had a very large toolbox with lots of fancy tools. The first thing he pulled out was this little plastic box with a bunch of wires coming out of it.

“Gonna check the volts?” I asked.

The stare he gave me told me that he knew I had no idea what I was saying, but was just trying to impress him.

He started sticking the wires on various dryer parts, and it was would occasionally beep. He would then say to himself, “240...120...” Again, trying to be cool, I summoned my inner Jack Butler: “Hitting 120?” (For the three people who remember that movie, isn’t that an underrated classic? Also, “Sneakers.”)

I decided I was not welcome here and retreated downstairs. (I base this on the fact that he pulled out a cell phone and began a conversation that included a discussion of “Knots Landing.” Seriously.)

A few minutes later, the repairman came downstairs and told me he was done. “Works like a charm,” he told me, before he skedaddled. Fantastic, I thought. Laundry service was back in order at the Gibbons household. I headed upstairs, ready to get it rolling. And when I got there, I was greeted with my dryer sitting in the middle of our bonus room, where I had shimmied it out to prior to calling a repairman. The guy had fixed my dryer, but had not (a) put it back where it goes, wedged in a closet with the washing machine or (b) reconnected the vent hose that goes out of the house. Wedging it back into the closet, snugly between the washing machine and the wall, wasn’t that big of a deal. Dryers aren’t that heavy, and I handled that myself. But once I got it backed into the laundry closet, I realized there was going to be a bit of a problem reattaching the hose, since the connection was behind the dryer at the bottom, and there was no way to get to that part of the dryer unless I were Kate Moss.

So, a logical approach would have been to cal the repair people back, tell them that the guy had not put my dryer back, and I would greatly appreciate if it made it completely functional, not just mostly functional. I, of course, am not a logical person, so I opted to instead try and attach the hose myself. And the only way to do this was to basically climb back behind the dryer. In order to properly connect it, I would have to keep the dryer close to the wall, so I had about 10 inches of space to work in. By the time I had lowered myself down between the wall and the dryer close enough to attach the vent, I was, for lack of a better word, stuck. At this point, I knew I had a few minutes of time to work on attached the hose, since my wife would take a few minutes to compose herself and stop laughing before she helped me. Soon, I had the hose connected, and was pretty much begging my wife to drag me out from the top of the dryer. It look a little while to unwedge myself, but I am fairly certain my wife was stalling on purpose.

When I was free, and my head was no longer filled with every ounce of blood in my body, I pressed the start button on the dryer and was thrilled to see that the hose attachment worked, and I would not have to go dryer diving again. Hopefully, it will be a long time before I have to pull the dryer out again. But, if it happens, at least I now know what to do. I’m calling the repairman back to the house to fix it while I watch “Sneakers.”