New Appreciation.

I've been unemployed for 5 days. Not in a deadbeat way. More of a 'moving on up to the east side' way. I do have another job awaiting. Anyways, it's been some of the busiest, tiresome, and most expensive 5 days. This was supposed to be my time. My break. A vacation.

I left my job last Thursday nearly all smiles. Then...

The weekend started off with a going away party with my Oakwood peeps in Dearborn. Love 'em. Will miss 'em. Drank about 57 Oberons and probably gained a similar 57 lbs in weight too. Those are some heavy, but good, beers. Saturday, my sister, Lola, and niece, Paige, came to visit. We tailgated early and baked in the hot sun for another Michigan football victory. Go Blue! After some quick Michigan paraphernalia shopping, we all swiftly drove back to Ohio for another niece, Molly's 3rd birthday party. More beers and pizza and cake, too. Sunday was a Neuenschwander family reunion in Wauseon. It's interesting to see a bunch of people that you don't really know hardly at all, but all the while look strangely similar to your dad and uncles. Monday I had to go shopping for a washing machine. Ours was condemned by the repairman on the previous Friday. Yesterday I started a disastrous DIY home improvement project (more on that later). Today I got a potentially-cancerous mole punched out of my thigh and then spent the morning in a laundromat. Anyways, this is where my story starts.

Laundromats. There is something romantic about them on TV or in the movies. Not so much in real life. I do not consider myself to be particularly materialistic, but I do appreciate some of the finer luxuries in life. Having your very own washing machine is one of those luxuries.

Our washing machine went on the fritz almost two weeks ago. We had to wait to have the repairman come over to check it out when someone would be available during normal business hours. So, the first day of my unemployment was spent waiting for the repairman during the assigned 4hr window only to have him take one glance at the machine within his very first minute in my house to say it was toast. Needless to say, laundry has been piling up in the household. Well, a little bit of comparison shopping and awaiting delivery has cost me a couple more days. The good news WAS that the washing machine is supposed to be delivered on Thursday. However, this morning, Troy tells me he's in his last pair of clean johns. Great. I really thought I could get through all of his without having to scrape up a gazillion quarters and lug all of our dirty clothes to the laundromat.

I will spare you many of the sordid details ( 'cause Troy says I need to work on brevity...he didn't use that word, fyi.). Suffice it to say, that I only did what needed to be done. A couple loads of skivvies. I didn't even dry them there. And, when I left, I wanted to announce to all of the diet-soda-drinking, Cheeto-eating, customers in the place that they were more than welcome to come over to my house to take a shower and use my new washing machine that arrives tomorrow. Troy has 'rinsed and dried' undies for tomorrow. The rest of the dirty clothes got lugged home. I placed the unused quarters back in Nate's piggy bank. I may even kiss the washing machine delivery man on the mouth tomorrow. That is the only thing romantic about any of this.