Mah Dawgs: The conclusion.

Well, 'em dawgs are replaced. But it wasn't without incident (because I prefer to color my life all pretty like that). Fact is, I'm prone to finding myself in a fix.

I once fixed my own lawn tractor. That little project included an encounter with my missing mop head, which had been converted into a luxurious fire hazard nest up inside the tractor, courtesy of field mice. An interesting phone conversation with Tractor Supply Company ensued, whereby I, a city-born country wannabe, tried to name parts I wasn't even sure existed.

There have been other fixes too. The hillbilly scaffold comes to mind. Carl and I had to paint the stairwell to put our country home on the market. We had no way of reaching the very tall walls inside the well. Solution? A retro end stand turned upside down on our steps, with books then stacked on the inverted side until we had a flat surface on which to place our extension ladder. And yours truly found herself up there taping, trim painting and rolling her heart out. Carl was my wingman, "guaranteeing" my safety by managing to keep the hillbilly scaffold intact until I came down from my own personal Everest. And yes, I had to second coat.

We dug our own dry well too. It's similar to a french drain, only you dig a 5' deep well at the end of it. We needed a place for our foundation water to go (the builder left a lovely length of pipe exposed in our backyard, so on rainy days we had Jamima Puddle duck stopping by for a chit chat.) I'm going to guess you've never dug a 5'deep by 5' long and wide ditch in your backyard, have you? I have. By hand, mind you. Along with a 15' french drain trench. Oh, and we had the pleasure of hauling stone from the driveway to the well. Enough stone to fill it. And naturally it was 90 degrees when we did this. I'm proud to say I was the brain behind that lil' project too.

So, back to the dawgs. They're up inside the agitator (people, they cost $8 and it's a $75 service repair so DIY if your wash machine agitator ever stops moving.) I went online (where I learn how to do all my fix-it projects) and saw that we needed to separate the mover (the upper part of the agitator) from the agitator base. All info said we just needed to pull up on the upper section and the dawgs would be exposed (remember, it's "dawgs" per Bubba).

Well, we pulled.
Nothing.
Pulled harder.
Zip.
Pulled like all get out.
Nada.

I was NOT about to be defeated by a stinkin' piece of plastic. So, I did what any determined foreman would do. I stood on the agitator base and yanked and pulled and tugged and yanked, and BAMM! That baby came flying off like a bat out of,...well, you know. Sent me to the ground like a dart. Pieces parts flew everywhere (so did I). Carl gave me that look. The one where I know he wishes I wasn't always so determined that "we can do this." But, being the ever patient hubby he is, he gathered the parts and set them aside with nary a grumble until we had our replacement dogs (they were on backorder.)

Enter,...the reassembly project. I had my diagram all ready.
But, what's this?
"Honey, there's supposed to be a little black rubber washer or ring or something. Did you take it off when you took the washer apart?"
"Uh uh."

We began searching, knowing that I had caused the launch of parts unknown to all corners of the living room just 24 hours earlier. Carl was crawling around on hands and knees. We moved couches and chairs. I searched the fake flower arrangement with the complimentary layer of dust. No washer washer. We found all sorts of missing parts (a lego, hair ties, Barbie's head), but none that came from the agitator. Next thing I know, I've been demoted to vacuum cleaner dust inspector. Uh huh, I am too serious. I found myself on the back porch with a dry paint brush and a pile of wind tunnel dirt dust to search through for the missing washer. Gross. Swell. Because along with that pine sap allergy, Carl can't handle dust either. Not without an asthma puffer, that is.

I stopped to pray that God would show us where the washer was (I should add that we weren't even sure we were missing this part; just saw it on the assembly diagram online and figured we might have unknowingly lost it during the parts launch). It's so cool when God lets you know He cares about the microscopic moments because just two minutes after I prayed, we found the washer. Buried amid "stuff" on my 'puter desk. Yes, the washer is running again.

And now the story about mah dawgs is told. I just hope it's done for Carl too? Because it seems I complained one too many times that we would need to do a big laundry mat run this weekend. The result? Last night Carl dreamed he had 17 wash machines going at the laundry mat. BAHAHAHAHA!

Toni