I have been living domestically independent for a year now, and despite the harrowing and brutal death of my fridge recently, I think I have generally performed at a reasonable level when you take into consideration my slightly cumbersome and blunderous nature. My next step up the ladder, I have decided, is to begin to learn and comprehend the settings on my various domestic appliances, such as washing machines, irons, toasters and microwave. I even intend to learn how to set the clock on my cooker.
Most complex appears to be the washing machine (pictured above). Currently I usually run programme C and hope for the best, and it seems to do the trick, though I have been known on occasion, to use B for whites, this also seems to work, then it gets more confusing. I have in my bedroom a nice double laundry basket with a section for “Lights” and “Darks” but I don’t really have further room for Silks, Wools, Colourfast Cotton, Non Colourfast Cotton, Delicates or Acrylics, and if I did, I would hardly know what is what anyway, when for example does a non colourfast cotton become a colourfast one, is it trial and error?
Then you have Delicates, Silks and Wools, what is a delicate, is it a shirt that breaks? Anyway it has to be treated the same as silks, so can I not put my breakable shirt in with my silk pants? (if I had any?) Then……………..then….I have an option to rinse and fast spin, rinse and slow spin, fast spin, slow spin, and pump, which one of those am I supposed to use? Answers on a postcard please. However, I know what pump means……….oh yes you betcha…………. that means water pumping throughout the downstairs of my house when I am in bed.
Finally the other options that intrigue me are Pre Wash, Quick Wash, Super Wash and Easy Iron. What’s a pre wash? Surely that is when you are still wearing it, because I assume that as soon as you press a button and water starts flowing in, it is washing something, unless perhaps it is a safety announcement like you get on planes. “In the unlikely event of the ‘Pump Out’ button spewing dirty water across your kitchen floor please use four rolls of kitchen towel, five Tea towels, and every page of your Sunday newspaper to mop up the endless pools of the pungent mess around you.
Quick wash? why not use that one every time, or does it only do a bit of cleaning, which if this the case, it is surely a bit pointless, as going to work smelling like you might have a bit of B.O is not, in my eyes, much better than stinking the place out. Go in to work with even a hint of B.O and you will forever be known as the smelly bloke in admin department. Super Wash I assume, is the opposite to Quick Wash, and is presumably a guarantee that you will never be the smelly guy from admin, though if it is Super, what does that make all the rest, a bit of ordinary wash? All the other washes must all hate Super Wash, the smart arsed bastard.
This just leaves my favourite “Easy Iron” the bullshit button to end all bullshit buttons. I have actually tried this, and there has to be something in the trades description act that makes this preposterous button illegal. How can you possibly wash something, take it out wet and find it any easier to iron, it is an outrageous statement that I am giving the contempt it deserves.
I think I might just stick to B and C from now on. Next week I am going to see what happens when I switch my dial on my iron off the maximum setting, though I already know the answer, it wont bloody iron anything will it.
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