I don’t wear Grandma’s ring all the time; I don’t want to lose it or subject it to harsh chemicals – as if I would ever clean. But there are times when I want to feel my grandma with me, because it is comforting and because when I am wearing her ring, I feel like I should try a little harder to be a decent person.

Of course, you know the ring is the turquoise thing and the white spots on my hand are vitiligo. The ring looks the same, summer or winter, but my hand come July will appear to be an abstract impression of a Guernsey cow.

Cow picture from HERE.

I wore it yesterday because I had to meet with this – aw, don’t mince words, AmeliaJake, – this BIMBO and I wanted to keep my sarcastic tendencies in check. Well, I got through that, mainly by saying only two sentences and then went about everything else.

About an hour ago, I looked down and it was gone – the ring, that is. Oh, my gosh, the PANIC. Finally, I sat down and thought, “Now, Grandma, please help me find it.” I thought it through and came up with a memory of doing something messy and putting it in a zippered free gift Estee Lauder pouch – circular, purple and pink since I’m being detailed in this recounting of my hyperventilating “the sky has fallen” mood – and then stashing it in the top drawer of a china cabinet.

There is a picture somewhere of me and Grandma standing on the front yard just before going to Sunday School. She is holding my hand: I am four or five: the ring is visible on her hand. I’m a bit older now, but I can still feel that morning air and the softness of her hand. I think I can also remember not being that enthusiastic about going to Sunday School.

Memories are such wonderful things. You can compress them in your mind and then take them out and wrap them around you like a comforting blanket and they can seem as if the moment is still here.

WOO HOO WOO HOOO WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO. Okay, calm now, AmeliaJake, let’s not jinnx yourself. The Maytag man called and they are going to come out and fix my washer Tuesday afternoon.

There is a bit of a catch: the warranty will not pay for it to go into the shop, so I told them I would see that the dryer was moved out and shelves cleared so the had plenty of room to work.

Still:

WOO HOO.

Ironically, while I was at the laundromat, a lady came in to use the dryer  . . . and with just the two of us there – well, you know how I tend to converse with everyone –  I found out that she had a Whirlpool, made by Maytag – or the other way around – that developed the very same problem: bad bearings from a leak in the tub.  The store that she purchased it from switched it out. But, I am not complaining. I will be very happy to have my washer go to surgery.

I have had no contact from Maytag and I am heading out to the laundromat. And to make me even happier, some people commented on my picture on Facebook being not really changed. So when I washed my face, I looked closely in the mirror and ACK ACK, I am getting crepe paper wrinkles on my cheeks. I am suspecting I had my Grandmother Grismore’s good skin gene, but it turned off.

Oh, I’ll cheer up eventually, but right now I feel like putting my head in the fixed washer, if and when it is fixed.  Agitate the heck out of those wrinkles and then spin them to kingdom come.

My attention was drawn to Facebook today and someone had done a few of those “what type of person are you” little apps. I was just going to do the one . . . and then I got sucked in. I hope I quit before I got too far behind the 8 ball. I will say this, some of the results triggered my trademark really large grin.

I’ve said before that my husband says when I grin, he is afraid the upper part of my  head is just going to fall off backwards. I think that remark causes me to squish my mouth up in a sulky pout. However, he may have something there: When I was out for lunch with relatives and we came out of the Country Club really picturesque restaurant and were separating to go to different cars, I heard one cousin say, “There’s that grin.” I had to stop myself from looking behind me on the pavement to see if the top of my head was there.

Ah, no I didn’t. I made that up; studies have shown that 99 out of 100 times, my head stays where it is, grin or not. However, 9 out of 10 doctors have suggested that flesh colored duct tape might be an extra safeguard.

I probably need to stop typing now and slowly back away from the keyboard.

I think you work for Whirlpool, the company that owns Maytag and you helped Dooce with her problem. Are you there?

I should have read what Dooce had to say about her Maytag experience in 2009. If you’re interested, you can read the saga HERE.

UH, THAT EXCERPT UP THERE – IT’S KIND OF MY FAVORITE PART OF THE POST.

And here’s another excerpt from her post:

I get a phone call from Jeff Piraino, manager of the executive offices of Whirlpool Corporation in Michigan.

BOO-YAH!

That, my friends, is service.

And he is incredibly nice, very apologetic, very helpful, and like any good therapist listens to why I am so upset. And the kicker: HE UNDERSTANDS WHY. So then he himself calls a different repair company and has a guy come out within the hour to look at the machine. And so I go put on a nursing bra to look presentable.

That guy assesses immediately that three parts need to be replaced, and he and Jeff at the headquarters in Michigan work it out that the parts will be overnighted and he can come back today and fix it. (currently waiting for him… UPDATE: he is here… waiting… waiting…FIXED! He FIXED IT! He FIXED IT! RAIN CAME BACK! RAIN CAME BACK!)

Oh my God, this is all I ever wanted. Seriously. Thank you Maytag. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jeff Piraino. My $1,300 washing machine is now working, and I can finally shut up about it. THE INTERNET THANKS YOU.

So I contacted Whirlpool and the chat lady said she had no idea who Jeff Piraino was.

JEFF PIRAINO: WHERE ARE YOU?  You are needed again.

I’m calling this Day One because it simplifies things. Actually, this is the first day after my Maytag Bravos washer – purchased in October of last year – was declared a mess, due to defective seal leaking onto the transmission by an approved certified Maytag repairman. It took about a week to get said repairman here, but we’ll start with today as the the official Maytag ‘actual repair countdown.

Of course, it is early in the morning and they will have all day to call me and talk about fixing it. After all, I online chatted with a representative as soon as the repairman left and this is the age of zip, zip, zip communication.

I could be feeling sarcastic; that last sentence doesn’t indicate contentment. I also could be feeling P_____ Off, but maybe the cranberry juice I’m drinking will help that. Oh, yeah, sarcasm.

Ah yes, the old hurry up and wait and then do it again routine. As I wrote earlier, my Maytag Bravos started screeching and I had to wait for an authorized, certified Maytag repairman. I waited about a week. He came on one of those “all day appointments” – you have to be available all day and if you are not, toooooo bad.

Well, finally he gets here and he starts the machine and it screeches; he tilts it up and shines a light under it and does this whirring thing with an automatic screwdriver or undriver as it were, and says the transmission is a mess. A seal in the tub leaked water and there you go . . .

He has to report it; then there is the wait for parts; it may have to go to the shop; Maytag doesn’t want to pay for that. Sigh

The repairman, who is older, maybe close to my age, then starts rubbing his chest and wincing. I’m thinking . . . Well, you know what I’m thinking. He asks for a glass of water and says that helps. The pain is perhaps esophageal. I didn’t delay him with a bunch of washer questions.

I log into my Maytag account and “chat” with a representative. Do you know they are very polite online and tell you how terribly sorry they are that your four month old machine failed catastrophically. And, no, your warranty doesn’t cover just swapping it out for a replacement. That would save the company too much money, of course; better to have workmen try to patch it together. Yes, the come part – that will take a while and they don’t want to send more than one man and the machine has to be completely taken apart.

It will be laundromat time for moi; I will probably be writing a continuing lamentation about Maytag reliability and service. Now there’s a muse for you.

I didn’t really skip Valentine’s Day; I was here. What happened is that I decided to give myself a Valentine treat by doing nothing. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.