November 06, 2006
The Dryer from Hell
Ever need more clothing that fits a four-year-old? Yeah, we dont either. And yet, for countless members of the crack young staff, the dryer portion of their home washer-dryers apparently doesnt realize this.
As a result, their irksome dryers do their very best to convert normal, adult clothes into little Barbie-sized items. Thanks to their dryers, your beloved sweater can instantly fit a doll. If you have, say, a T-shirt with the perfect fit, youd better keep it away from their dryerstheyll make sure that Gary Coleman is the only one who can wear it comfortably.
Its sad, actually. And not easily remedied: Our dryers have only two settingsstill sopping wet and Shrinky-Dink. Our clothes are either fit for a flounder or a Smurf; take your pick.
As we said, this is not some sort of statistical aberration. Informal polling around the office water cooler suggests that nearly 47 percent of the crack young staffs dryers are hotter than the Sahara. Theyre so hot that we have reason to believe that Buster Poindexter lives inside them. In a few of them, in fact, you can dry pottery.
How in the good Lords name does this happen? In our experience, though lots of folks have overzealously hot dryers, seldom do you meet people with other appliances that are equally irritating. How many people do you know with refrigerators that instantly freeze all of their contents? Not many, eh?
And yet the plague of the infernally blazing dryer is disarmingly common. Cant someone do something about this?
The Third-World may have the blights of AIDS, incessant poverty, and hopelessly corrupt governance, but we in the First World fare little better: We have blazing dryers. Think poorly of us for making this comparison, but were sticking by it.
We mean, come on: Whats more irksome than putting on a favorite shirt and realizing that it, thanks to your dryer, makes you feel as if you stole it from the 12-year-old across the street? Or from Britney Spears? Not, wed say, too much.
If you ask us, the fellow who designed the modern clothes dryer was an undercover agent for Good Will. After all, one short spin in the dryer, and all our textiles will be headed to the Salvation Army.
