A New Dryer

Right in front of my bedroom/office door is a gigantic pile of laundry which has been growing since Saturday, the day I went to the laundry mat. My dryer broke, so we bought a brand new one, which Sears promised to deliver on tuesday. It arrived today, thursday. Through several scheduling mishaps and poor communication, it took two days to finally show up.

This morning, I made a cup of coffee and watched the guys haul it through the house to the laundry room, trying not to giggle about finally being able to do laundry. I know I need to get out more if I'm excited about doing laundry. But that pile of laundry has become a mental block to my sense of organization and creativity. Every time I go in and out of my room, I have to climb over dirty towels, jeans, t-shirts and socks while tripping over the idle laundry baskets. This chaos impacts the rest of the chaos in my room: the piles of paperwork. One pile for taxes. One pile for school. One pile related to book promotion. One pile of magazines and stories to read which I will never get to, but I can't throw them away until I do. But somehow, with a new dryer and full bottle of laundry soap, all those piles felt less threatening.

And then the delivery guy said he couldn't hook up the dryer because it isn't attached to the washing machine because the washing machine doesn't have the necessery holes to connect the stacking kit. "You just need to get some self-tacking screws, ma'am, to screw into your washer. I'm not allowed to drill into your exsisting appliance, but it's easy to do. Screw them in, stick the vent hose on and then plug the dryer in. You're good to go." Before I could kick him for calling me ma'am while telling me I couldn't use my dryer, he ran away.

So here I sit. I have a dryer, but I still can't do laundry. Which means I'm still tripping over a pile. Paperwork and dirty socks are intermingling. There are bills hiding under unwashed towels. My brain remains soiled, and not in a fun way.

What is a self-tacking screw, anyway?