Here we go–I promised to reveal my stupidity, so I must do so in my best Poor Richard fashion.
Just recently, we had a problem with underwear emerging from the washing machine with holes in them. We examined every working piece of the Maytag machine and couldn’t find the source of the tears. One morning when my wife became unbearably histrionic, I vowed to take action. First, I called Maytag to schedule a repair visit.
Now, the last time I did this–to replace the main control knob on the washer–it cost me $400, or more than the machine is worth or originally cost. As the Maytag people this day explained the service call charge and possible parts charges, I began calculating in my head that it would, again, cost me more than buying a new machine. So, I hung up, went online and ordered a new washing machine, due in two days.
Two days later the delivery men arrived, installed the new machine and took away my “old” washer (two years old!) for recycling or whatever. As the old machine was hauled away, I kept thinking, “I bet there’s nothing wrong with that unit.”
How right I was! That same night my wife discovered the cause of the holes in the underwear, and it had nothing to do with mechanical processes. It was a family of rats burrowing into our laundry bin in the garage. We moved the laundy recepticle inside the house, et voila!–the holes in the underwear disappeared, as did the rats.
I still have rat traps loaded with people butter in the garage to punish any remaining or returning rodents, but they just grab their bellies every day as they crawl by my machinations and doomday machines.
And laugh they should–I spent $600 buying a new washing machine with a five-year warranty, and someone somewhere out there is using my old machine and thinking what a fool I was to give it up. Fortunately, they have no clue about the cause–my $600 rat.
Poor Richard, save me!
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