No Wi-Fi at the Laundromat.

What happened here?

Did I lose my keys in the blackberries again?

Should I have ponied up the sixty bucks and let the vet check my cat's prostate instead?  

Who scratched up that dinosaur foot?

You know what happens when you assume. What you're seeing portrayed in the image at left is the result of a WMD—a Washing Machine Disaster, and this photo portrays day four of the dermal rebuilding process.

Have you ever sliced yourself on something so thin and sharp that you don't feel it (see Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child, 1975) and you don't notice how impressively you're bleeding until strange crimson smudges appear on everything you touch?

Even then it took a couple of seconds as I pondered, Interesting, that looks like a drop of blood on the floor. Who could be bleeding? Could it be me? Don't be daft, man! Interesting, there's another drop. I'll just check my hand even though I don't feel anyth...shit! Oh, man. Oh, gross.

Red rivulets running down my wrist, I shoved my hand under the kitchen tap, applied pressure to my freshly sliced fingers and tried to scavenge a Band-Aid that might fit that awkward ravine between my knuckles. After three unsuccessful attempts with different sizes, I realized that Johnson and Johnson really could have used a third Johnson to invent a Band-Aid that is able to establish permanent residency in Knuckle Gulch because there is no such Band-Aid.

On Saturday, the washer and I swapped more fluids than Charlie Sheen at a "So you want to be my kids' nanny" ice breaker.

Let's face it, when I try to fix stuff, two of the following three results usually occur:

1) It takes at really long time, like half a day.
2) The problem I'm attempting to solve becomes worse.
3) I sweat and bleed...a lot.

But this time, I knelt humbly, Tebowing my forehead against the cool sheet metal of my attacker and pointing my bloody paw heavenward to coax the fleeing platelets in a northerly direction.

Fortune had smiled...three for three.

And yes, the washer is now in even worse condition. At first it didn't spin. Now, it doesn't spin and also leaks all over the floor. What began as an ill-conceived stab at home maintenance quickly deteriorated into profound laundric malpractice.

Informed that an obstructed pump filter can cause the spin cycle to malfunction, sixty-one cents and a bobby pin later, I'd thought I'd cleared the obstruction. I felt a similar buzz of satisfaction to the one I felt once upon digging out a chunk of ear wax that would make a miner forty-niner blush.

Yeah, no. With everything hooked back up, I cranked the spigot. Instantly, an amoeba of water creeped out from under the machine, slowly advancing to other rooms like a Nazi water army where the laundry room was already occupied France. Fortunately, the Allies repelled the enemy just short of the throw rug, which I suppose would be England.

Now, I'm at the laundromat, washing and drying not only a week's worth of clothes, but also the huge stack of towels required to sop up the Nazi water.

Folks have come and gone, but so far, no one has exhibited anywhere near the volume of soiled garments I've dragged into this place. My older daughter's stack towers above the rest of the family's. What the hell? I think. How many changes of clothes can one person wear in a week? Did she host the Golden Globes and I missed it?

Sure, it's been kind of a hassle and it's taken a while, but after seeing a lot of people who do this all the time, I can't help feeling fortunate about having both the means to own a washer...

...and the ability to clot.