A Sordid Tale of Violence and Destruction (Involving A Washing Machine)

We've become a bit more primitive lately, and find ourselves enjoying it immensely.
When we arrived here Manolo and Mari Pepa had bought a used washing machine for us. It mostly worked, but had an irritating habit of draining water onto the floor instead of the drain hose. I opened it up, but couldn't find where it was leaking from, so we would just mop the floor every 10-15 minutes every time we washed clothes.

Several weeks later, the washer stopped wanting to run the drain/rinse cycle. Furthermore a nasty acrid smoky electric smell would emanate from the machine at this point in the wash. I suppose the drain motor was burning out trying to pump air? I would just spin the dial to Stop when this happened, and squeeze the water out by hand. I forgot to mention this to Carrie. Oops.

I come home from school one day to find all the electric off, because the washing machine had popped the breaker switch. Unfortunately the washing machine would now pop the breaker whenever the power button was pushed. I spun the dial to a different cycle, hoping it would work, loaded up some clothes....and popped the breaker again.

I should mention at this point that the washer is a small front-loader with a locking door. The door unlocks at the end of the cycle to allow you to retrieve your clothing. Unfortunately for me, all the clothes were now locked inside, and I couldn't turn on the machine to get them out because it would just pop the breaker again. My jacket was inside also, which I definitely needed for the chilly morning walk to school.

However, like any good American, when faced with a difficult problem I always resort to violence. Using my awesome $3 hammer from the Arabian market, I smashed the washer door to pieces and triumphantly retrieved my sweatshirt.

Of course now we had no washing machine, which is how we became more primitive. Carrie suggested we wash clothes in the bathtub until the washer was replaced. To my surprise, I found that I greatly prefer washing clothes this way. The clothing is cleaner, I can wash more clothing at once, and I experience some kind of strange pleasure seeing all the dirt come out and go down the drain. We've scrapped any plans to replace the washer.