by Lisa Scottoline
I got plumbing problems.
No, not personally.
In that regard, I’m not sure I even have plumbing anymore.
I’m pretty sure the pipes are rusty.
Like, disintegrating.
But that’s not my point herein.
The problem is my washing machine.
I’m dealing with The Mystery of the Maytag.
This is not to malign a product.
I don’t know if my problem is Maytag’s fault, but I’m going to plumb the depths to find out.
Sorry.
We begin with what just happened, which is that I walked into my dining room, where it was raining.
The dining room is directly below the laundry room on the second floor, and I had just put in a load of laundry, so I raced upstairs to find that the hose on the back of the washing machine was detached and spraying water all over the place.
I got drenched, but I knew what to do because this happened so many times. I found the on-off valve on the wall, moved it, and the water stopped.
And my anger started.
I have had this problem so many times that my dining room now has bubbles in the ceiling from water damage.
And so do all of the books sitting on the floor.
Okay, I admit it, I shouldn’t have books in my dining room, but I do.
Don’t you?
Anyway all the books in my dining room are wrinkled like they were dropped in the bathtub.
Or, like me.
And every time this happens, I call a plumber, who says it’s the fault of the appliance, so I call an appliance guy who says it’s the fault of the water, and then I call a water guy who says there’s nothing wrong with the water.
And we start over.
It’s happened five times already.
It’s not only a vicious cycle, it’s a wet one.
This time I even called an electrician because somebody had the theory that the hose was becoming detached because of electrolysis, which I thought removed unwanted chin hair.
For that, I use a tweezers.
I’m all over the unwanted-hair situation.
I cracked that case.
It’s the washer that’s the problem.
After all, I am one person and I produce a few items of laundry a week.
I can wait a month to do laundry because there’s so little.
Also because I’m lazy.
Nowadays I do laundry less and less, because every time, I know I’m risking an interior thunderstorm.
And there’s no accountability.
Everybody who’s supposed to fix it says it can’t be fixed, and the only solution they have all come up with is to change the hoses every six months.
So I do.
But this time, they came detached at three months.
I could change them every three months, but I would really like to know what the hell is going on.
Normal people don’t have washing machines that wash the room.
I think a better solution would be to throw the washing machine out the window.
Or do my laundry in my sink.
Or beat it against a rock.
Best yet, I can throw rocks at the washing machine.
Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2026