Overall, I get on with most household appliances, except the washing machine, which hates me. Not only does it hate me, but it hijacks my time every opportunity it gets. Since I reason that I can have a shower in less than ten minutes – including drying time – I am at a complete loss to understand why the standard washing machine cycle needs two and a half hours to clean a few clothes. And it doesn’t even dry them. So I have it set to the shortest programme possible and then press the button for ‘quick wash’. It now takes half an hour per load. The washing machine hates this. It tries to prolong each cycle by rotating the barrel by a mere quarter inch and then stopping dead for what feels like ages. This means that you are never quite sure when it’s finished. Last week, it was silent for ages. ‘It’s finished’, I thought, but then hesitated. I waited outside the door and counted to a hundred. Then two hundred. Nothing. Silence from the machine. I counted to another hundred and walked in. And it moved a quarter inch with a pathetic sloshing noise and stopped. I swear I heard it laughing.
The fridge is the same but less subtle. It has an alarm that sounds when you have the door open for more than three milliseconds. There is hardly enough time to grasp a pint of milk before it makes a noise like a rape alarm. I got so sick of it I asked the company what the hell the noise was for. It is, apparently, to prevent me leaving the door open and warming the interior. Oh, is it. Well, last winter, when the temperature outside had dropped to minus five, way colder than the fridge, I dragged it outside on an extension lead - I actually did this. I then opened the door and, three milliseconds later, the alarm sounded. So the company are lying. The only reason for the alarm is to bug the hell out of me every time I want to feed myself.
Things might have been different if they had left the design of the fridge to an Asperger person. Like my microwave. When the food has cooked and is ready for eating a buzzer sounds – no surprise there – but a message also flashes across the screen telling me to ‘Open Door to Remove Food’. Pure Asperger. With my last microwave, that didn’t occur to me and I took an axe to the metal side panel and smashed my way in. Now I know to open the door instead. Absolutely brilliant.
Anyway, to return to the washing machine. One evening, I was preparing to go out. Not an entirely relaxed time for me but it was also the night I do clothes washing and, like any Asperger person, changing the routine was impossible. So I shoved everything in the machine and set it to wash in double quick time. The washing machine knew this and dragged everything out interminably. I needed to leave in ten minutes and it still hadn’t got anywhere close to finishing. I was beginning to panic; I still had to drape the clothes over the stove for them to dry even after the bloody machine had washed them. It started its quarter-inch-rotation-followed-by-stopping routine. I yelled at it to hurry up. It then drained a bit of water. I screamed I was due out in approximately seven minutes and twenty three seconds. It did another quarter inch turn and stopped. I feared I might have apoplexy and die. What an end that would be; a melted heap next to a smirking washing machine. No. It wasn’t going to beat me. Finally, and with three minutes spare, it stopped. At last. I tugged at the door. Nothing. Then I remembered the utterly stupid, pointless, and dire piece of engineering that is the child lock. It prevents you from opening the machine for two minutes after it stops. This is in case a child opens the door and…well what? It’s stopped for crying out loud. So now I have to stand there waiting whilst that smug git of a machine denies me access to my clothes. I was beyond furious. I counted two minutes in my head and tried the door again. Nothing. I completely lost it at that point and decided the time had come to show this jumped-up two-bit machine who was boss. In American parlance, I kicked it’s ass. Well, not it’s ass but the front of the panel near the glass. Immediately, the door sprung open and I noticed a big dent in the front of the machine.
Later that evening, I admitted to Vanessa what I had done. She took it well. Then she asked me what I would have said if she had hoofed an enormous dent in the side of a household appliance. I replied that I’d be furious. But that’s missing the point entirely. The washing machine does not hate Vanessa like it hates me. She wouldn’t have to.
