How do I begin?
In media res, for sure, because we are here in the middle of things. Know now that this tale lacks resolution. Know that there are no clear heroes and villains. Only a long chain of bad decisions, poor execution, disinterested actors, and a man with a dream long, long ago to fill a modest suburban home with a variety of increasingly inexplicable garden tubs.
It would have been the nineties then, but early enough in the decade that everyone still tight-rolled their blue jeans high enough that you could see puffy socks slouched luxuriantly over a Sebago or a suede bootie. We were years, full calendar years, before hairspray sales tanked and jeans went baggy. And in 1991, the original owner of my house liked skylights, Tuscan tile, gold fixtures, and most of all, bathtubs. Great big old honking bathtubs.
The primary bathroom features an oval jacuzzi tub surrounded by pink and green tile under a skylight you might recognize from a half-remembered dreaml in 1985. It is impossible to know how many homeowners back the jacuzzi stopped working. The previous owner admitted it had never worked for her. She did, however, buy a smaller hot water heater and moved it from under the stairs into the crawl space beneath the house, which means it takes approximately a full geological age for the hot water to travel to my bathtub. Once the warm water arrives to the tub, it will produce about 4-6 inches worth, enough to cover the non-working rusted jets, but rarely an adult human thigh. But I’m not here to complain about that bathtub. The cats love it. And I still get a kick out of the dreamy power suit divorcee skylight and the glass shower and the embarrassment cabinets in the first bathroom in my whole life I have not had to share with anyone else.
The problem lies, or squats, rather in the corner of the guest bath. That tub is so bizarrely arrayed and proportioned that I literally had to stand up just now and go look at it again to figure out whether it was an oval or a triangle (it’s both, sort of, and also surprisingly a pentagon). It’s wide and vast requires and features built-in seats like a hot tub. But it is also shallow. The end effect gives party tub for polyamorous foot fetishists or something.
I’ve been laughing about the tub since I first toured the house and found it, then surrounded by a jungle-printed shower curtain left behind by the previous owner. Then Covid happened. Then things started going wrong. The drain broke. The shower nozzle fell off. Someone slipped trying to get crawl over the excessively tall side. The shower curtain rod crapped out I practically had to hit up a theatrical supply company to find anything close to large enough (and that didn’t work). And on and on. The fundamental issue is the sheer size of the thing. It takes up, easily, half the room. Bathtubs are not easily moved. This one is tiled into the sink console beside it (also large).
Enter laundry
I have no idea which owner of the house decided to put the washer and dryer in the bathroom with the giant tub. Someone made that choice. For reasons I must assume made sense to them at the time. And because they did, the only place a washer and dryer can fit is stacked in the far corner flush against the giant sink and scant inches from the toilet. This is a less-than-ideal situation for a whole lot of reasons, among them making repairs more complicated and expensive because it’s impossible finagle the corner without a lot of moving things around. And again, one does not just move a bathtub.
About three weeks ago, the washer shit the bed at maybe the least opportune time in my calendar year. The first two appliance repairmen I called told me I would need to unstack the units myself, pull them out from the wall, and remove the toilet before they would even take a look. I laughed because I couldn’t cry. I did laundry at friends’ houses. I visited the laundromat. After Thanksgiving, I called the plumber in desperation. I figured, “maybe they can move the toilet at least.” They didn’t have to. They were nice. They unstacked the washer dryer, declared the situation above their pay grade and recommended a third appliance guy. That guy was busy but recommended a fourth appliance guy took one look at the bathroom and said, “Wow, somebody is really into big bubble baths, right?”
Sure.
He charged me a couple hundred bucks for the looksee and had me order a $50 plastic part that might work, or rather, it would work well enough for him to tell me what was wrong with the washing machine. “Could be the pump is bad,” he said. “And if that’s the case, you probably just ought to order a new washer, but I can’t tell you that until we get the part.”
I ordered the part. Then I started doing math—never a good sign. I went to Lowes on a hunch. The price of all the washers, save the fanciest, was less than or equal to the amount of money I had already spent, including the plastic part. I talked to a salesperson. I explained my situation, the exact layout of the bathroom, the complicated history of the devices I had. They recommended a washing machine. I bought it and set it up for delivery this past Sunday.
The next day I received the plastic part in the mail. I considered cancelling my appointment with the appliance guy on Monday. I decided against it. This would turn out to be a good decision.
Lowe’s gave me a delivery window of 4-8pm on Sunday, hence I thought I was safe going for a walk at 12:30. At 1pm, when I was not quite two miles from the house, I got a notification that the delivery truck was headed my way. I quickly backtracked, started running back uphill with somewhat less grace than Kate Bush. I was about half a mile from home when the deliverymen called and said they were in my driveway. I begged for them to stay and sprinted the rest of the way
They were lounging when I arrived, winded and sweaty. They told me that they’d inconvenienced everyone they’d delivered to all day, because all the deliveries had been at least 4-5 hours early but “That’s not really our problem. Boss says. We go. You know?”
I breathlessly conveyed that I knew. I understood. Not their fault. I started asking if I could have minute to put the cats up when the driver asked if I expected him to stack my existing dryer on the new washer. I said yes, it was stackable, and that the salesperson had said that would be fine. And he told me that was a problem, but not his problem because he couldn’t install it. “You have to have a matching dryer to stack a new washer. So, you’ll need to send this one back and then buy a set.” I stared. He walked past me to the house. “I’ll just take a pic of your bathroom, so my boss knows why we had to cancel, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
I could breathe again and talk so I started asking questions (“Are you sure? Why did no one tell me? Is there anyone that can do this? I mean, I can’t buy a new dryer. I just spent $700 to fix the fucking dryer back in July). He smirked through a whole list of answers (Yes. Because the salespeople just want to make a sale, so they lie and stuff. I have no idea, but probably not. Okay, but you get that’s not my problem). I’m ashamed to tell you I was crying when I brought him into the house to take a picture of my dysfunctional bathroom full of unstacked dysfunctional appliances and a growing mountain of laundry in the giant bathtub. He chuckled a bit at my distress. Then he closed the truck and drove away.
I stewed. I talked to family. I talked to friends. I seriously considered whether the best option would be to move the washer and dryer to a different location. The most reasonable place to move them would evidently devalue of my house because it would take away a closet in a bedroom. I entertained an elaborate fantasy of taking the bathroom apart and starting from scratch. But I don’t have, like, six months and 30 grand sitting around.
Monday the appliance guy came back. I gave him the envelope containing the plastic part. It was broken upon arrival, so ultimately non-workable. He could, however, test long enough to rule out whether that piece was the problem. It wasn’t. He apologized. He told me about a surplus appliance warehouse where I could get a washer for cheap, but I’d have to haul it myself. He charged me $25 bucks and tried to push everything aside to create a narrow path to the toilet.
I went to a competing hardware chain I don’t usually shop from because of their political donation history. But I was too mad at Lowes to reward them with another purchase. I ordered new washer and a new dryer from the other store,
Two days later, I got a text from Lowe’s telling me the first washer would be arriving soon by delivery. I spent about an hour and a half in a supermarket parking lot talking to a cast of thousands, one at a time, trying to cancel the order that had already been canceled. I won’t take you through this. I don’t throw around the word “Kafkaesque” lightly. The only way to stop the order that had previously been stopped required talking to someone named Dave at a warehouse in Greensboro who was both the long tail on a very frustrating series of transfers and evidently the only person in the entire Lowes organization who can process a refund. It was, in a word, Kafkaesque.
Tomorrow (today?) at some point, I will, at least theoretically, receive a new washer and a dryer. If this does not work, I genuinely don’t know what I’m going to do next. Start hanging out at laundromats, I guess? I mean, I get that in the greater scheme of things this is not a big deal, but it seems ridiculous that I’m here. Blaming the bathtub is safest option.
Wish me luck.
We will now return to regularly scheduled programming.
Tiny Commotions 