Another One Bites the Dust

2011 has been a rough year for our appliances.  Trouble started when our fridge died.  Then our stove bit the dust.  Next victim:  the microwave.  Since bad things happen in threes you'd think that we were good.

You. Would. Be. Wrong.

Our washing machine (Kenmore Elite HE3) has been the bane of my existence since we bought it.  Discovery number one: it STANK like mould.  Did my research, figured out the cause of the problem and rectified it.  Unfortunately, leaving the door open often led to much swearing after Chris or I would smash our legs on it.  (you would think after eight years we would have learned to avoid it.  You would be wrong). 

Discovery number two: the machine eats children's socks and underwear.  Yep, this particular unit had an affinity for small articles of clothing.  We'd often find stray socks or panties trapped in the 'bladder' of the machine.  EWWWWWW. 

Discovery number three: that sucker vibrated more than..... well let's not go there.  Needless to say, when the machine was on the spin cycle it sounded like a jet engine on take-off.  No amount of balancing, straightening, or levelling would fix it. 

In the last couple of weeks the vibrating has gotten to the point where we thought the machine was going to burn a hole through the floor and fall to the Earth's core.  It was ridiculous.  Chris discovered that the polypropylene drum (now how's that for a big, intelligent sounding word?!?!) was actually separating from the stainless steel drum.  Fantastic.  It reached it's breaking point (literally) on Saturday when I discovered polypropylene shards in my underwear (who knew that underwear and panties would make appearances in my blog?).

Upon closer inspection we discovered that the polypropylene drum was totally shredded.  Which meant:  NEW WASHING MACHINE!!!!  (you may think I was excited because I hated the Kenmore so much, but seriously, who gets excited about dolling out hundreds of unplanned dollars and shopping for washing machines?!?!)

This morning after dropping the kids at school we headed to the local appliance store.  You know it's bad when you're outside the store in your car waiting for it to open at 9:00a.m.

We knew we wanted a top loader because I was BEYOND over the 'benefits' of a front loader.  We also knew that we needed as large a machine as possible.  I mean seriously? Four kids, three hockey players, and their clothes are only getting bigger.

We zeroed in on the Whirlpool Cabrio (a 5 cubic litre beheamouth).  It has all the bells and whistles we like (mainly being a delay setting.  We are big, BIG fans of the delay setting.  We load the clothes in the morning, delay it for six hours, and when we come home we unload freshly washed clothes into the dryer.  Or if we can't do all the laundry at night, we put a load in, delay it 6 hours and then switch it to the dryer first thing in the morning - perfect) and was in our price range.

Even better were the five words that sealed the deal: "We can deliver it  tomorrow."  Chris and I almost knocked eachother over trying to sign on the dotted line.

This has got to be it for us in terms of appliances right?  Please tell me it is, because I may just loose my mind soon!