Warning: Step away from the Candy!

Our wee kitchen, where we are hiding something under the sink.

The demon-possessed washing machine!

Notice the bottom left button. This is the symbol for making your shirt dirty. It works as advertised.

This is an actual sign that I drove past on my way to Ireland a few weeks ago. It should have been posted in front of our washing machine before the landlord brought it home from the store.

Today we turn our attention to the Northern Ireland version of washing one’s clothes. This happens in what is commonly called a washer. I’m not quite sure why they call it a washer, but I shall tell you about the demonically possessed machine that occupies our flat.

Most of the so-called washers here are located in the kitchen, right next to the sink. This allows the machine to use the same drain that is plumbed for the sink, ensuring that any water that might be backed up the drain from an obstacle can easily backfill the sink with clean, sanitised water from the machine. Another benefit of locating the washer in the kitchen is that you can store your laundry detergent right next to your cooking pans ensuring a clean, fresh laundry smell baked right into your cookies.

Our washer is what is called a combination washer/dryer. Now one might be tempted to think that some genius engineer has figured out how to wash and dry the clothes in the same machine. Alas, this is not the case. What has actually happened is that some genius marketing guy has figured out that if you tell people this machine can wash and dry the clothes in the same compartment, they will buy it. Millions of these have been sold and we are hopeful that the engineers are frantically working out a way to make them do something useful.

The Candy Company manufactures the washer we have. Candy, as the name implies, has absolutely nothing to do with candy. It is an Italian appliance manufacturer, which probably explains why it doesn’t do anything that one might expect from something called a washer.

Our Candy is a brand new “high-efficiency front loader” with “several options for washing and drying your clothes so they come out perfect every time.”

The theory is that you put a load of dirty clothes into this enchanted box. Add some detergent and push a few buttons. Walla! Just like magic, your clothes are first washed and then dried. When you open the mystic box, your clothes are clean, dry and ready to be worn to your next appointment.

The sad reality is that none of these things actually happen. Valves open and water is poured into the machine. Then, depending on which buttons you pushed, it turns very, very slowly for anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple of days. Every once in a while it stops, daring you to open the door. Then it turns in the opposite direction even slower than before. This goes on for what seems like a week or two. Then, magically, it drains out the water and turns even slower until next month. Eventually, after making sure you have run completely out of other clothes to wear, it stops.

Then things get really tricky. After it stops you are lead to believe you can open the door and retrieve your belongings. But, NO! The door will not open no matter what you do. Even if you call or eat Candy, nothing happens!

Sometime during the night, when you are not paying attention, the washer receives a signal from Peppino Fumagalli that it is ok to unlock the door. (Peppino is the Chairman of the Board of the Candy Company. He used to work for Geppetto, until they got into a dispute over who owned Pinocchio’s nose.) In the morning, you are allowed to open the door.

However, the worst is yet to come. Yes, you do have your clothes back, but are they clean? NO! Are they dry? NO! Are they worse than they were when you put them in? YES!

First, this machine is not designed to actually drain the soiled water when it is finished with the washing cycle. Therefore, whatever you have accumulated in the cylinder from every single previous wash cycle since the machine left Italy, is floating around to be applied to whatever clothes you have included in your most recent cycle. This results in each load coming out slightly dirtier than it was when it went in. I have searched in vain for a way to break this cycle, including washing a pizza box to see if it would absorb the evil spirits that Candy built into the design.

Second, the drying cycles do not actually dry anything. I am not sure what they do, other than consume electricity, for which we pay dearly. I do know that if you put a load of clothes into the machine and select a drying cycle, the first thing it does is open the water valve and let in a 5-second flow of water, causing you to urgently push every button on the machine because you think you accidentally turned on a wash cycle. Then it laughs (in Italian), turns off the water and proceeds to make a lot of drying-sounding noise without any actual dry-making activity.

So what does this all mean on washday? We select a wash cycle randomly because they all fail to wash about the same. We do not select a dry cycle because we haven’t figured out what this does not do. We take out the so-called washed clothes and spend about an hour trying to pick off the largest pieces of lint and other fashionable items we don‘t want to show. We iron everything and then we hang it on a rack to air dry. Sometimes for variety we hang it to dry first, then we iron it. One time I tried ironing my shirt after I put it on. Although I was very careful, this is actually something you only need to try once, or less.

The one thing besides family that we truly miss from back home is a washer that washes and a dryer that dries. But hey, we got Candy!

Elder Blickenstaff