Hospitality

Several weeks ago our dryer overheated, melting two cord-locks on a fleece jacket of mine and threatening to combust many other articles of apparel. We knew our dryer was old (the same age as our now-defunct washer), so we prepared to bite another bullet and get a new dryer. Before we could go that far, though, a little spirit told us to at least give it a Google and see if the fix might be quick.

After just a few magic clicks by Sara and the undoing of a few screws by yours truly, we discovered that the problem likely could be solved by the replacement of a couple of twenty-dollar fuses: much cheaper than buying a few hundred dollars' worth of new dryer. We opened up the machine and found the wires supporting the offending bits:

The parts came in a week later, at precisely the same time that a dear friend of ours from Manhattan came for a weekend visit.

Nothing says "Welcome to our home" like "Help us fix our dryer." So we exercised our hospitality muscles by inviting Megan to help fix the fuses and--the really fun part that we only let guests do--clean out the remnants of melted plastic from the inside of the tumbler.

Here's Megan, enjoying the best view afforded by le chateau de Tyler:

I now have it on good authority that adhesive remover applied while one's head is stuck in a dryer tumbler might as well be considered a controlled substance.

Huffing aside, Megan did a great job. With dryer fixed and tested, we decided to celebrate with two rounds of Settlers of Catan.

Thanks, Megan, for playing along with your hosts!

This just in:

The dryer has gone on the fritz again (though, we assure you, through no fault of Megan's). It seems the central problem is with the "automatic" setting: the setting that supposedly senses when your laundry is dry and turns off the heat. Sara has discovered that the "timed" setting (i.e. the Neolithic way of drying, when you set the knob for "30 minutes" and checked to see if your underwear was dry after the buzz) still works. The dryer may not turn itself off based on moisture levels--and may, in fact, still catch stuff on fire--but it does obey the timer.

Since line-drying is just a couple weeks away, Sara has decided that we can wait on a new dryer until we've grown another arm and leg to pay for it.

~emrys