On My Own

This comes to you from Cocoa Beach, Florida, where I will be staying for an indeterminate period of time while I deal with issues involving an ailing mother. I am staying alone in my mother’s house. This is the first time I have lived like a bachelor since I got married in 1979. On a finely calibrated scale from zero to ten, it's not as much fun as I remembered it.

I decided to wash some socks and underwear yesterday. My recollection is that washing machines were simple devices back in the day. Either my memory is faulty or I’ve gotten stupid or washing machine technology has gotten ridiculously complicated. None of those choices are mutually exclusive; in fact, all three are distinct possibilities.

I’m pretty sure the controls of the Lunar Excursion Module were less complicated and confusing than the controls of my mother’s washer. What’s really alarming is that the controls consist of just four knobs. Lab monkeys and pigeons can be trained to operate devices with four knobs; why am I having a problem?

Part of the problem is that I don’t understand the choices. One knob on the washing machine gave me the choice of cold/cold, warm/warm, warm/cold, and hot/cold. I think the choices refer to wash and rinse temperatures, but they seem rather arbitrary to me. Why can’t you have a cold/hot or hot/warm for instance? Is there some law of nature―Bronstein’s Third Law of Washing Dynamics, for instance―that says those choices are no good for clothing? I think this control was designed by the Rain Man.

The second knob is a straight forward yes or no choice of whether I want an extra rinse or not. You would think this would be a simple choice. Maybe it is if you know what you are doing, but I found myself going through a complicated logical analysis to decide whether an extra rinse is good or bad. I reasoned that because it is a choice it must matter whether clothes get an extra rinse or not. If it matters, then there are ramifications if I make the wrong choice. I have no idea what the actual ramifications are but it occurred to me that the possible universe of consequences include the destruction of my tidy whities. Then I started thinking that because it was a yes or no choice of an extra rinse that means the normal washing process does not involve an extra rinse. So then the question became whether underwear and socks should get a normal rinse or an extra rinse. It seemed logical to me that underwear and socks merit extra everything when it comes to washing so that’s what I picked. I wonder whether Spock and Sherlock Holmes, two supremely logical characters, ever faced logical quandaries like this in their daily lives.

The next knob was “Final Spin Speed.” My choices were slow, normal or fast. I figured the spin speed didn’t matter that much when it comes to underwear, so I went for broke and chose fast. I would be interested to learn how spin speed figures into the washing equation. How much can it matter whether your underwear undergoes four or six G’s of centrifugal spin force? Perhaps the Air Force has done experiments.

It was the final knob on the washing machine that was the real stumper. The choices were multiple and overwhelming: Delay Start, Delicates/Hand Washables, Regular/Permanent Press, Pre-Wash, Final Spin, Power Wash. One of the sub-choices made no sense to me. Under Power Wash the options were Heavy, Medium, and Short. I don’t understand how a range of choices can include heavy and short. To me that’s like asking someone to choose between hot and bright or light and long.

Not only did I not understand the choices, but I’m embarrassed to admit I did not understand how the control worked. It spun freely around 360 degrees. If I put it on Final Spin, did that mean my clothes would be spun but not washed? How does one pick Regular/Permanent Press and Power Wash at the same time since they are on opposite sides of the dial? In the end I did what most red-blooded males do. I kept spinning the dial and pushing and pulling it until something started to happen. As I sit here now, I’m not sure my clothes were washed. All I know is that when the machine stopped, they were damp and pressed against the side of the drum like a pancake.

Not only am I doing my own washing, but I’m doing my own cooking. In typical bachelor fashion I am making sure that I am eating a balanced diet consisting of the four main food groups: pizza, fish sticks, Wolf Brand chili and beer. I am a discriminating food shopper. I won’t buy a food item unless the package says instant, minute, or microwavable. I figure that if can’t prepare a meal in under 15 minute, it’s not worth eating. Actually, my diet is an incentive to get my mother’s issues resolved in the shortest time. It’s a race between taking care of the problem and malnutrition.

I’m dealing with medical staff, administrators and doctors while I’m here. On the theory that it’s important to let such people know that I’m reputable, intelligent, and have some wherewithal in the world, I brought some nice clothing, ties, shoes and a sports coat. I don’t want them to think I’m an ignorant country bumpkin. Interestingly, I find that when I wear my cowboy hat and cowboy boots they pay more attention to me. I think they think that I might be dangerous dressed that way.

As luck would have it, on the way down my truck’s grill started to shake loose. I know I should have fixed the grill after I ran into our farm gate last winter but I was operating on Georgia time. Besides, who the hell am I trying to impress in Fannin County? At any rate, I had to stop just north of Atlanta and buy some duct tape to tape the grill down. So now I’m driving around in my farm truck with a giant wad of duct tape across the front. That should impress the hell out of them. And to think that I used to be somebody.

On a more serious note, things seem to be moving along nicely here. With any luck I’ll be able to head back to Georgia in a week or so. I thank everyone for their kind words of support and encouragement.