Candy Nobody Wants

Meet the Candy Aquamatic 3, surely the finest washing machine Italy had to offer in 1962. Candy lives in one of the closets underneath my loft bed, behind a rolling staircase. Despite her name, our start is not particularly sweet.

For one, Candy does not make a good housemate. She is loud and shakes the house like an earthquake with her exertions. The neighbors are already well aware of her predilections. She is no longer allowed to operate from 1:30-3:30 pm or after 10pm. Candy doesn't let me run the air conditioner, and you could fry an egg on her hot metal top. (Don't get too excited -- she ain't much to look at neither.)

Candy is never accompanied by her handy friend, the dryer. She tells me to use the clothesline above the balcony. I tell Candy to shove it, I'll do what I want. Not having a dryer is a form of disenfranchisement, like not having a TiVo or a Macintosh. I can always wash things in the sink, but a dryer is irreplaceable. I seem to remember using a clothesline once as a child, and the next day my clothes were all crunchy.

Worse still, Ms. Aquamatic III does not do a good job. And she takes forever, running the same cycle over and over and over again. Candy is a bad communicator. It is very unclear how to use her. Her front-piece has some sort of matrix of numbers and symbols, I dare you to make any sense of it. It could be the Rosetta Stone for all I know.

Candy does have her good points. Her spacious interior can wash up to four socks at a time, half of which will come out entirely dry and untouched, which saves a lot of time with hanging and such. They still smell stinky but also vaguely of gardenias, so that's a start.

That was sarcasm, not that Candy could ever tell. She is not very bright. It might be time to seek out new sources of conversation. But then I'd have to leave the house, and it's hot out there. She let me turn the a/c back on.