The appliance with something insistent to say

My clothes dryer has become pretty opinionated lately.

For the past thirteen years, it has dutifully and quietly performed every task we’ve given it with nothing more than a soft murmur of industry to let you know it was on the job. But just this summer it has started mouthing off with an endless mantra of squeaks and bumps that echo through the house, even with the door to the laundry room shut.

I’m not sure what it’s trying to say because I don’t speak GE Dryer, but it sounds like it’s something important enough for me to try to figure out.

The sentence is a five-syllable chant that never varies— one loud squeak, followed by two quick, softer squeaks, then another accent squeak capped off with a final softer squeak.

It may be chanting: “HERE, take your PHONE back.” Or maybe “STOP eating DOnuts.” But that can’t be it, because my phone is in my pocket, and even an appliance should know the difference between a donut and a chunk of coffee cake. As if it’s any of the machine’s business what I’m munching on anyway.

Maybe it’s: “WHO wants some ICE cream?”

Or: “MOVE to KenTUCKy?”

Or: “DON’T kiss a PENguin?”

I don’t know. All I know is that machine has had plenty to say lately.

I guess I should have seen it coming, because at thirteen years old, that dryer is just entering those awkward adolescent years, complete with an overinflated view of its own opinion expressed in a loud, squeaky, changing voice.

It’s not the first time I’ve lived with an opinionated appliance. Before we moved to the house we live in now, we lived in a house for 27 years, and for many of those years the clothes dryer squeaked and rattled any time you sent it tumbling.

My wife argued that we should get it fixed, or even send it packing and get a new one, but it still got the clothes dry and I was sort of attached to it, squeaks and all.

She said: “Fine—you can do the laundry whenever I’m out of the house.” She said it in a “gotcha” tone that implied that the discussion was happily settled.

Now, a threat like that might send most husbands straight out to Sears, but I accepted the deal without hesitation. That’s because I knew that washing and drying clothes is the easiest household task imaginable—especially if you don’t mind finding your white shirts have turned a little pink, or your wool sweaters have suddenly gotten a bit snug.

Besides, I knew that dryer wasn’t really expressing an opinion I needed to figure out. No, that appliance was an accomplished percussionist—as regular as a metronome—that could hold down a perfect 4-4 time for hours on end without a single carpal tunnel complaint. Whenever my wife hit the road on laundry day, I pulled out my harmonica and we jammed to some pretty snappy blues tunes. When we really got going, the dog provided the vocals. And we rocked it out, man!

But for some reason, I think it’s different this time around. I don’t think this screeching dryer in my house now is another mechanical Keith Moon, or even a budding Buddy Miles.

No, this dryer seems to have something to say. And it really seems insistent about it.

And just a few minutes ago, I realized with a shudder that I think I know what it is.

Because after I dumped a load of clothes into the dryer and set it to spinning (and opining), I closed the laundry room door and walked to the living room, where CNN was on the TV.

And as the panel of political “experts” screeched mechanically over one another on TV, I’m pretty sure I could hear that ardent appliance shouting to me through the closed door: “HILLary NEEDS you!”

Or maybe it was: “TRUMP’ll win, TRUST me!”

I may be wrong. That may not have been it at all. But now I can’t get it out of my head.

And if I have to listen to that stumpy appliance stumping for a political candidate for the next two months or so—not to mention the endless mechanical moaning or boasting that’s sure to come once the election is over—I’m pretty sure my neighbors will hear a new laundry-day mantra echoing from my house, one that sounds a lot like: “POUR me some WHISKey,” in a voice that sounds a lot like my own.

Of course, I could just make my peace with wearing dirty clothes from now on and let the unused dryer keep its cold, insistent opinion to itself.

As a worst-case scenario, I may have to give in to the option my wife prefers, and make a quick trip to Sears.

And that would happen sooner rather than later if the Cubs’ magnificent season collapses in October—because there’s no way I’m going to spend the whole winter listening to that bucket of bolts keep saying: “WAIT until NEXT year… WAIT until NEXT year… WAIT until NEXT year….”

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