Everything You Take for Granted (Until It Breaks)
Last week my washing machine broke down. I've had it for almost 10 years now, and I actually have no idea if that's a normal age for a device like this to stop working. It presented me with an error code related to water damage somewhere in the machine, although I couldn't find anything upon inspecting it. Cleaning the filters and letting out any excess water unfortunately didn't solve the problem.
Only when a machine like this breaks do you realize the convenience it brings. Normally you wouldn't think twice about doing your laundry. It's just something you do. Machines like these suddenly stopping, that really is a first world problem.
After trying to make an appointment to get it fixed and then hearing what it would cost just to have someone come around to check the problem (without it being fixed yet) I figured it was a better idea to buy a new one. Today two guys came to install it, and it went faster than you could blink your eye. One moment they stepped through the door, lifting the machine with one hand like it weighed a feather, and the next we'd already parted ways, after they asked if I had any remaining questions. Like a dream you just woke from and immediately forgot.
The only thing I remember was one of the guys making a comment about my Assassin's Creed figurine standing on top of my cabinet. He thought Black Flag was the best part in the series.
In the few days I lived without a washing machine, I discovered something I'd never noticed before: a facility only a few minutes' walk from my home. A facility that must have been there since I moved in my current home, but one that had never caught my eye. It was a laundry two washing machines and a dryer, located at the side of a gas station.
It was a laundry I obviously never had to use before, because I had my own machine at home. But now that I had to live a few days without one, it suddenly appeared. It's like never registering driving school vehicles on the road until you take driving lessons yourself. Then you suddenly see them everywhere.
This laundry and I became friends over the past couple of days. I met new people there. One woman came to wash her bed blankets because they couldn't fit in her own machine. One man drove up in his van to do his weekly laundry. And then of course there was me, the guy with a broken washing machine at home.
Unexpected and unwanted moments like a broken washing machine lead to new connections. New people to meet. Interesting conversations to take place.
And now I'm sitting on the couch of my living room, looking outside my window from where I can just barely see the laundry and the people who use it. People I won't meet today. But maybe sometime in the future, when my washing machine breaks down again.