The curse of Kasia

January 16; 88 degrees

Breakfast every morning is now under a palapa overlooking the beach.  This is where we take our time, enjoy some coffee and decide what our day might entail.  Sara (the owner of LazDivaz) and I begin rehashing some events and stories from our BBQ on the beach.  This leads us to talk about the makeshift grill that she has created from an old metal chair.  Sara tells me of her plans to drill small holes into the side of the drum in the shapes of stars and the moon.  She then proceeds to explain that the best thing to make one of the fire pits or grill is an old clothes washer drum.  They already have the holes in it and they are made of stainless steel so they will never rust. In an instant, I blurted out,  "Maybe your washer will break and you will have your new fire drum!".

Not even 30 mins later, Sara decides to do some laundry and her washer stops working.  She curses me for even suggesting that her washer should break down.  The letters "de" show up on the display trying to indicate what is wrong.  None of us knows what this means.  Sara pulls out the owners manual and we look it up.  The description is indicating that the door is open.  We head back to the washer to see what may be either holding the door open or causing the sensor to go off.  We begin to clean a little debris from the joints and make sure no lint is stuck anywhere on the lid.  After cleaning, we try again.  Nope, that wasn't it.  We inspect the lid again and start to take apart the back lid to see if any wiring may have come loose.  We unattach and reattach the wiring and try it again.  Nope,  that didn't fix it either.  

By this time, Mandy walks in and wonders what the heck Sara and I are up to.  We continue to troubleshoot and notice a little bit of rust on the very edge of the lid.  This didn't make any sense because all the parts we can see are plastic.  This was our first clue that a piece might be missing.  We begin to remove items from the washer and drain the water.  An assembly line makes the most sense.  One person to remove items from the drum,  one person to hold the hose and drain water into buckets and a third person to water the garden with full buckets.  Don't waste that water!!!

The rust mark on the bottom of the lid is still bugging us.  Maybe it is a piece of metal that tips off the sensor there.  Sara grabs the lid of a tuna can and cuts off a piece.  We shove the piece of metal into a little slot where the rust is showing and close the lid again.  "Let's try it!".  We hold our breathe and wait...no such luck.

We finish draining the drum when Mandy and Sara discover something stuck to the inside.  "What is that?".  Mandy inserts her monkey arms and pulls it out.  It is a small, skinny, rusted magnet broken in half.  We squeeze it into the slot under the lid and try it again.  "Oh wait, it won't work without water in it."  We start pouring water from the last bucket back into the washer instead of wasting more water.  To elevate the level of water, we toss the sheets back in too.  We close the lid and try one last time...no one breathes...it works!  Sara lets out a sigh of relief before she bans me from ever speaking about any of the appliances again.  Quickly,  Sara and Mandy declare that if anything else goes wrong in the day, it will certainly be my fault.

Deep down,  I know that we were all glad to have one another there to troubleshoot.  There is no worse feeling than when you pay for an expert to fix an appliance when it really was an easy fix.  Today,  I will take the blame from their shoulders.

Mandy by the fire pit on the beach.  This is before the washer incident the next day.

The fire pit/grill