For me, the fact of gas being involved ruled the question. Our busy gas dryer was working just fine, Rich informed me, except for the fact that this was the third time this load went through and there was no heat. I had needed a break from all the news I'd been watching on TV about the rioters invading the Capitol Building in D.C. and was just coming back inside the house after my respite and passed by Rich and the dryer.
While I wondered why he kept running the same load, hoping for heat suddenly returning, that wasn't first thing on my mind. I felt the side of the dryer, and no warmth came through. Just in case it was better insulated than I remembered it being, I opened the door and verified the same thing, while trying to keep the clothes from falling out while the drum kept turning, something else wrong with it. Eventually I got everything back inside except one handkerchief, which I simply decided to sacrifice by shutting the door on it. (It is now untorn, but one section, showing where the folds were, is darkly grey from embedded lint, since it sat for half an hour over the lint trap. It may never recover. The load was otherwise mostly black. Pockets, guys!)
My nose told me there was no gas coming in without being lit, so that wasn't an emergency. Deciding to check whether any gas was coming in the house, period, I lit the stove. Perfect. That wasn't the problem and the furnace was also doing its job. But what do I do first?
I called our gas company, resulting in two periods on hold, my chance to explain the issue twice, and the information that there was no licensed gas plumber any closer than Queen Creek. While this was supposedly within 50 miles, I had to ask whether this was as the crow flies or did it take into consideration the detour around South Mountain any non-crows would have to make? Come to think of it, maybe the crows flew a round it as well. Oh wait, do we even have crows down here? Anyway, knowing that such charges are based on mileage, I declined that particular referral.
So who next? Well, I had gotten the information that I need a licensed gas and electric plumber (huh?), so looked it up on Google. No such information combo registered, but there were a lot of roto-rooter type plumbers in the area. Also that big name one that comes with big prices and up-sale attempts. Hmmmm....
I know, try Home Depot. They just did a bunch of work for us, and they contract with all kinds of specialties for installations, including the water/gas plumber used in our recent new counters installation. Maybe if I name-dropped our previous connection, praising their former work, they could recommend somebody? A couple pass-offs to somebody else got me to the actual key piece of information I needed so they could refer me. They even took into account that this needed to be more than just a gas issue, that somebody would have to know how to fix that dryer of something internal were the problem: who was the manufacturer?
One of the issues with a front-loading machine is that the top is free counter space... for about the first 15 seconds! After digging around without benefit of a flashlight, I finally found the name: General Electric. As soon as I provided that, she offered me a 1-800 number and a website. First I tried the number, and immediately their machine informed me was that there would be a long wait due to covid. (What? Do their appliances get the virus too?) By then my ear and elbow on the same side were more than tired from the phone, so I instead tried their national website. Not my idea of user friendly.
So I simply retried with letting Google add the words "near me" in my search parameters and got a local phone number. No long wait, just a prompt response and a pleasant conversation with a competent woman who understood exactly what I was talking about and could send out a repair person between noon and three tomorrow. For $70. Just to stop by. He would discuss the costs of what he founded needing to be fixed after getting there. No fix, still $70. I signed up, and she then informed me if I canceled, it would be a $30, charge, but I could reschedule at no charge.
So I guess the next question is whether the semi-dry clothes in the dryer need to go up to the laundromat later, or can be spread around to finish air drying so a whole quarter or two can be saved? They are Richard's load, but I can't ask him because he was already sleeping. Don't need that kerfuffle, trying to wake him.
I can't get the mail either. He's stretched out across the path, very narrow because he's still in the process of clearing out all the stuff in that room, which is why all the laundry in the first place, and I can't safely walk barefoot through that. Heck, not knowing what everything is, I don't trust my balance either, should there be a peculiar lump somewhere in there. I could wind up on the floor as well. The mail comes in the slot in the door on the other end of the room, so you may ask what's my problem? Well, the lock on that door doesn't work and hasn't for two weeks now. He'd going to get around to fixing it, and has gotten far enough along in that process where he can unlock it from the inside. Nothing unlocks it from outside. Maybe there's nothing important in that stack, eh?
I need a break from all the house stuff. Think I'll just go back to the news coverage from D. C.
... OH HOLY SHIT!
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