I try not to worry too much about the big stuff – fire, drought, mean people, the Delta variant. When I go to bed at night, I free my mind and visualize playing my favorite golf course hole-by-hole. It takes a couple of weeks to play 18, because I usually fall asleep after one or two holes.
The visualization exercise has been good for my sleep and good for my game. I wonder now what else we can improve through visualization?
The myth of self-esteem
I loved this column by Carolyn Hax. A person who doesn’t feel pretty or smart asks how to improve self-esteem, and Carolyn blows up the whole concept of self-esteem because it’s an irrelevant ranking system.
Carolyn asks, “Do you feel smart around people who are less accomplished? Pretty around people who are less attractive?”
She concludes by saying throw away all measures of value, period. Our value is absolute. We exist therefore we matter. No more than anyone, and no less.
The unexpected pleasure of dryer lint
They say don’t sweat the small stuff, but actually, it kind of works for me. Let us draw our attention to, oh, I don’t know, dryer lint? Allow me to explain.
We bought our home when I retired a few years ago. The house is about 20 years old. That’s like 65 years old in people years. You know, the point at which things start to go wrong.
Actually, the house is in good shape, but just like us, things need tending to. One odd thing we noticed for quite some time were water spots on the sliding glass door that leads to the patio and the same sort of spots on an adjacent window.
We’d clean them off, and they would come back. The door is just under the outside portion of the dryer vent, so we scientifically studied our laundry habits and concluded the spots were related to moisture from the dryer vent. Maybe it was blowing back at the house and onto the door and window?
As it happens, we had a handyman service scheduled to install some lights and a few other minor jobs. We mentioned the problem and wondered if the vent might be clogged. Not that we had any idea how that could contribute to the water stains, but it sounded plausible to us.
Mr. Handyman said a clogged vent could absolutely be the issue, and they could “blow it out.” He said it might work, might not, but we all figured it was worth a try.
Our technician first hooked a hose up to the inside portion of the dryer vent and used a shop vac to suck out the lint. At first, only a little came out. Then he went outside and used a snake-like tool to probe the vent and free up the clogs. He had to go back and forth, between the inside vent and the outside vent multiple times to loosen the debris. He said the vent was packed tight with lint from one end to the other.
Eventually, clumps and masses of lint emerged from both ends of the vent. Twenty years of lint, one might assume. I watched the whole thing with complete and utter fascination, dashing back and forth to watch the latest bomb drop.
I couldn’t wait to see more stuff come out. Kind of like Dr. Pimple Popper. Our technician filled three shop vacs full of lint and then some, declaring the job complete only when there was full air flow through the vents. At the end, it was almost like birds singing.
I’m so glad we had this done. I’m amazed our dryer even worked, and one would have to assume all that lint is a fire hazard, even if it does live in a moist environment.
Cost was about $275. We haven’t done a load of laundry since the intervention, so we don’t know whether it solved the problem. But either way, 20 years of dryer lint is a special kind of entertainment we shall probably not see again in our lifetime.
Wow! That is a lot of lint. Back when I was first starting out, I bought a second-hand apartment-sized dryer. I asked the seller where the lint trap was. Got a blank stare, then “there is no lint trap”. Uh huh. I got the thing home and found the lint trap at the back of the drum. Pulled it out and it was of course packed with lint. I could have used it as a mouse pad – that’s how densely it was packed – except this was before home computers and mice. Dryer ran like a charm and I sold it again, several years later, when I bought my first house.
Deb
“There is no lint trap.” Scary stuff!
Wow!! I keep thinking we need to have our dryer vent cleaned out because it’s a long way from the dryer to the outside and I’m a little worried about how much lint might have built up. But that’s only after six years, not twenty!! I also heard we need to clean the lint catcher in the dryer periodically, as dryer sheets can leave a film on them that prevents them from doing a good job catching the lint. If you run water over it and it doesn’t completely go through, then you need to clean it.
I think my last comment went to spam again after I thought we were over that. Let’s hope this one is accepted!!
I’m headed downstairs right this minute to pull out the lint trap and run water over it!
As for the bad news, your comment was tagged as spam again. I am going to call them and find out what the deal is.
This is totally fascinating.
Makes me want to do the same thing with our 20 year old clothes dryer! 😀
I do feel better knowing I’m not the only one who finds it fascinating!
Donna, just reading your blog’s title made me chuckle this morning, and then Deb’s comment added to my good humour 🙂 Me, I’m an obsessive lint cleaner – I cannot remember who trained me in this area, as it certainly wasn’t my mother. Fortunately her cleaner takes very good take of her (and the lint).
Thank you so much for the link to the Carolyn Hax article. It is both interesting and going to be such a useful reading for my clients (who suffer from depression and anxiety mostly).
Great to start your day slightly amused! I love Carolyn Hax and am so glad you found the column helpful. Another great advice columnist is Cary Tennis, although I don’t think he does it anymore. He used to write for Salon.com. His “best of” book is titled, “Since You Asked.” I seem to have lost my copy, but it is full of wisdom. I might have to get another copy.
1. Dryer lint is a common cause of a fire. Your local fire station goes on plenty of dryer fires every year! Clean it out regularly.
2. Word to the wise: when leaving home for vacation, unplug your dryer, washer, and turn off your hot and cold water taps at the washer shut offs. If the dryer heating element relay switch doesn’t work properly, it will keep heating— EVEN if the dryer door is open. The heat created is incredible. Catastrophe narrowly averted in our home! Could have burned the house down.
Hi Walt, thanks for visiting and for taking the time to share such important information. I think we all want to avert a catastrophe, and this seems like an easy fix.
I bet your dryer will now dry clothes in half the time!
You’ve got that right! I dried a load yesterday, and set the timer as I usually do. About mid-way through, I went to check on them, and the clothes were dry and hot to the touch. So, this should save some energy, too.