Alien Abduction

The giant mound of laundry that grew while the sewer line was clogged kept me up late last night doing several loads, and I woke up early this morning to continue.  In the midst of the mad rush to get the kids bathed, dressed, and fed, and myself out the door for a meeting at the office, I smelled something burning. 

I opened the basement door, and out wafted a haze of black, burnt-rubber smoke.  Since we have 3 smoke detectors monitored by ADT, my first thought was that the fire department would be arriving soon for the 4th false alarm at the Greenabderrazak residence.  I bravely and stupidly ran down to the basement to see what was burning, and the source of the smoke was the washer, which was on the spin cycle.  I lifted the lid and the basket wasn't spinning - obviously the belt was slipping or stretched and burning.

I turned the washer off, aired out the basement, and called ADT.  Then I called Ben to tell him the bad news.  When I told him that I was going to call the appliance guy to come fix the washer, it became obvious to me that aliens have abducted my husband, Mr. IgnoreItAndItWillGoAway, and in his place left Mr. Fix-It. 

Mr. Fix-It insisted that we could replace the belts ourselves for a fraction of the cost, and spent this evening watching appliance repairmen on Youtube replacing washing machine belts (when I walked past the computer I heard one of the appliance-repair professionals say, "So I'm going to replace this bastard..."). 

I guess Ben is still on the DIY-high from reaming out the sewer pipe.  Tomorrow night should be fun!
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