The Truck Hamper Experience

Well over a decade ago all of our appliances died at once.  Not all at once like at the very same minute, more like all at once in the very same month.  One after the other, they all bit the dust.

First, it was the fridge.  It stopped fridging.  Things that should be cold got warm.  This was unacceptable.  Then the dryer met its maker.  If I remember correctly, it was made by Whirlpool.  So yes, you may infer that the dryer met Whirlpool when it stopped drying.  The washer met Whirlpool, as well.  Whirlpool is a very just appliance god.  Whirlpool made sure that the washer wasn’t separated from its mate.  If they were going to go, they were going to go together.

It was obviously time to go appliance shopping.  We headed to Sears.  Remember Sears?  Yeah, this was WELL over a decade ago.  Anyhow, we went there and bought a washer, dryer, fridge and just for fun, a dishwasher and upright freezer.  I got a black fridge (very cool) and the washer and dryer were in this really cool slate gray.  That color would be perfect in our laundry room.  Woohoo!  Now you would think this would be the happy ending that anyone would wish for after surviving an appliance apocalypse, but it wasn’t that easy.

The new fridge was awesome and it fridged everything just right.  The upright freezer was an outstanding addition to our appliance fleet.  I could freeze as much as my heart desired.  Apparently, my heart desired a lot of frozen stuff because we filled it rather quickly.   How did I ever live without a dishwasher?  I love my dishwasher and it loves me.  I just know it does.

The dryer was delivered but it was hard to know just how well it worked because the washing machine was back ordered.  The really cool shade of slate gray I ordered would be available in a week.  I could live with that, no problem.

The week turned into two.  It was no longer a ‘no problem’ sort of deal.  It was a problem.  When it stretched out to three weeks and then four, it was a big freaking (not the first word that came to mind as I typed this) PROBLEM!

You might be asking yourself why we didn’t just go to the laundromat, and that would be a valid question.  I didn’t go there because of an oath I made to myself.  When Bill and I were first married, we did the apartment/laundromat thing and I was not a fan.  But the necessity of clean clothes made my path clear. I had no alternative and I accepted that…until we bought the house and had appliances of our own.  It was then that I vowed I would never do another load of laundry in a laundromat ever again!  Just because this stupid washer in a cool shade of slate gray was going to be late, I was not going to let myself down.

As you can imagine, there were certain ramifications that resulted from this decision.  About a week into this fiasco, we ran out of hamper space.  As time went on, I was wearing outfits to work that were increasingly “interesting.”  I dug clothes out from the back of my closet that hadn’t seen the light of day in ages.  My mixing and matching of separates became more ‘peculiar,’ or as I like to think of it, ‘creative’ as time went on.

I drove by that laundromat twice a day, and I won’t say I wasn’t tempted.  However, an oath is an oath and I wasn’t about to break it.  I had to come up with another plan.

By the second week, we were stuffing dirty clothes in garbage bags.  That helped alleviate the hamper problem, but where to put the bags till that freaking (again, not the first word I thought of) washer showed up.  Then it hit me.  The truck!!!  We both had cars but we also had an old Chevy Luv pickup truck with a cap on it.  The truck looked a lot like the one up there at the top of the page, only it was black.  That truck became our new hamper.  The truck hamper was born!  By the time that freaking washer arrived, the back of that truck was full of dirty laundry in garbage bags.

I sense you have some questions.  Let me see if I can answer some of them here and now:

“How on earth could the truck be so full of laundry that it piled up to the ceiling of the cap?”  Perhaps the better question is “How long did we have to endure this washerless existence?”  About three months.  I’ll just pause for a second for you to process that.  Three months of not washing clothes.

Did we end up wearing dirty clothes during any of this?  We did not.  I did a lot of clothes shopping during that time, I won’t lie.  When my mode of dress became too outlandish, I had to buy some new duds.  Hey, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make!

During the truck hamper experience, I bought 100 pairs of underwear.  Ok, it probably wasn’t exactly a hundred, it was well over 100!  No lie.  The truck hamper experience happened well over 10 years ago. Every once in a while I will tell Bill that I’m still wearing truck hamper underwear and we’ll have a good laugh.  I haven’t bought a pair of underwear since!

Yes, I do wear underwear till it has holes in it.  Yes, my mother would be mortified if I had to be picked up by an ambulance and they saw that I had holey underwear.  Still, I am proud of the fact that I still wear truck hamper underwear!  It is a testament to keeping my oath to myself!

Last year I had to smile as they were hauling off that washer.  I’m sure the appliance guys wondered why I was so amused.  They had no idea that some of that truck hamper underwear outlived the washer, including the pair I was wearing then and there.