Stabby

[judecorp]

The Jude is so irritated right now. Grrrr. Judezilla.

Last week, Jen had called the gas company to get recommendations on who should come install our new gas dryer, which we got on Friday and haven't been able to use yet. (And we are so out of clothes.) But anyway, the gas company gave some recommendations and she called them, and made an appointment with one of the companies for this morning at 8. The woman on the phone said it should be somewhere around $70. Okay, fine.

Well, 7:30 rolls around and Jen is getting ready for work and I am just filled with this weird sense of dread about this dryer guy, and I ask her if she can stay to deal with him and go into work a little late. I mean, I don't have any clothes, I've been wearing these pajamas for two days, my clothes are all buried behind our king-sized mattress that we took out so Jen could paint the bedroom (which probably won't be done until next weekend at this rate), etc. and I was ready to have a meltdown. So she stays.

Well, damn, I should trust my instincts more often because I would have seriously lost my shit if I had been alone with this guy. Jen goes down into the basement with him and he tells her it will cost TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE DOLLARS. To hook up the parts. I'm not even kidding. So Jen comes upstairs and tells me this and asks me what to do, and I'm like, "You call that woman in the office and you find out what is up." But I guess she went back downstairs and talks to the guy about how she was not expecting this /at all/ and she isn't sure what to do and the guy ends up leaving, no charge. Which was nice of him, since he probably should have charged something for showing up. But hello, $285 to hook up a dryer? WHAT?

So now we need to find a Plan B. We should have just gotten an electric dryer so we could just plug the effing thing in. We need to wash some clothes STAT but I can't leave the house all day because freaking IKEA is supposed to drop off our headboard sometime between 12 and 6.

Comments

[baab.livejournal.com]

Um, this may seem a stupid suggestion, but can you rig a clothesline in the basement/laundry to line dry at least a few articles for the short term? I've got a few hangars in the rafters of my laundry room for this purpose, because drying some of my shirts makes them too small for my impressive bulk.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. The rope is going up in the basement and we will all be wearing stiff underpants!

[jodied.livejournal.com]

If you have liquid fabric softener, it can make a big difference on the stiff clothes. They still won't feel like they came out of the dryer, but they won't chafe ;-)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm going to pick some up today.

[sunshyne72.livejournal.com]

Have you tried looking for someone on craigslist maybe? Like a handyman or something? My hubby can swap those parts out, but Columbus to you is kind of a drive. :)

[colorbars.livejournal.com]

You can also do it yourself. Type in 'hook up gas dryer' (no quotes) in Google and you'll get several. Just be sure to check for leaks.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I did Google "install gas dryer" previously and to be quite honest, I don't feel comfortable messing with natural gas myself. It's also a law in Massachusetts that a licensed individual do any work that involves gas (like hooking up a stove or dryer). Aah, the joys of Google!

[colorbars.livejournal.com]

Ah the joys of the People's Republic of Massachusetts. Frankly I don't see how the state has the jurisdiction since that's clearly a local zoning matter. If you aren't comfortable with it then the point is moot, but I'd be tempted to just tell anyone who cared to go pound sand. I'm a pain in the ass that way though.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

The last thing I want is to blow up my new house, dude.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I haven't checked craigslist, but we were going to use a "friend's handyman" for some of our other repairs and he has totally flaked out, so I'm a little leery, especially where we would like to start doing some laundry soon. Jen apparently went back to Best Buy (where we got the w/d) and we're just going to pay one of their folks to do the dryer. Here in MA you need to be licensed to install a gas appliance, so we needed to get a special person.

[sunshyne72.livejournal.com]

Ah, bummer. But yay for safety.

[kjtoo.livejournal.com]

You might be inclined to think that $285 is a lot of money just to plug in the dryer and connect the exhaust hose. I assure you, with modern dryers, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, $285 is quite the bargain, considering that the installer must:

• Ensure that the dryer is perfectly level to prevent drum wobble. Most dryers today have only a two degree tolerance for imbalance, and anything outside of that could result in the rapidly rotating, superheated polyalloy drum becoming unbalanced. For a full explanation of why this is bad, see the next bullet.
• Calibrate the drive motor based on precise measurement of latitude and longitude. This calibration requires the use of military-grade global positioning devices (accurate to one tenth of one meter) and is necessary to compensate for the Earth's electromagnetic and gravitational forces as they relate to distance from the equator, fixed nuclear power sources, and the like. Failure to properly calibrate the drive motor can result in a cascade resonance scenario. For a full explanation of why this is bad, see the next bullet.
• Perform a full battery of operational tests following installation, including (but not limited to) impact on local flora, fauna, soil quality and water purity, measurement of sonic, electromagnetic, radio wave and pulsar emissions, and effectiveness of the lint trap. All measurements gathered during these tests must fall within parameters deemed acceptable by the FDA, FAA, EPA and CTW. Failure to properly follow all installation procedures may result in wormholes to the Delta Quadrant, a tear in the time-space continuum, portals opening to alternate dimensions, or slightly damp clothes.

[colorbars.livejournal.com]

*splorf* You owe me a new monitor.

Are you thinking of George Frankly's disclaimer at the beginning of one of the Mathnet movies by any chance?

[kjtoo.livejournal.com]

Wow, I haven't thought about Mathnet in years. I wasn't thinking about George Frankly, but I am now. I wonder if those episodes are available on DVD.

Without accepting liability, I would like to apologize for any damage to your monitor that may have resulted from reading about the spectacular deal Jude is getting on her dryer installation.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

You are a total nut.

xo