How Dry I Am Not
Five years ago, just after moving in, the dryer on the old, decrepit Frigidaire stacked unit started emitting a raucous rattle, almost like something either was stuck between the drum and the housing, or some part of the drum was rhythmically striking something jutting slightly into its path of rotation.
The handyman sent by the landlord apparently had been with the property for years. He confirmed the oddity that pressing on the back of the unit would reduce the noise, eliminating it with enough pressure. Rather than opening up the entire thing to find the source of the rattle, he simply drove a screw into the back panel, creating constant pressure.
On his way out, after returning tools to his bag which sat atop my coffee table, he pulled out a leaflet and began to proselytize at me about his lord and savior Jesus Christ. Taking advantage of the fact that I’d been legally obligated to let him into my living space, he made me feel like I was the intruder.
This experience explains why, when the rattle returned at some point later on, I simply began wedging something between the wall and the back of the dryer, to maintain adequate pressure. While I don’t relive things due to the aphantasia and the SDAM, experiences like this nonetheless do get laid down in my nervous system in other ways, and the mere thought of having to take the chance that he’d return was enough to trigger fight, flight, or freeze.
In essence, on this count I’ve been frozen for years, despite more than one change in management and in ownership.
Lately the rattle has returned with a vengeance, and yesterday—fives years to the day since the problem first appeared—after removing the back panel of the unit to see if I could figure out the problem, and determining only that the get at the right component would entail disconnecting a small batch of the wiring, I put everything back and resolved to contact my landlord.
The noise is worse than ever since I tried to deal without myself, and the local folks contact by my landlord cannot get out until Tuesday morning. Unless I can find something sufficiently strong to wedge between the wall and the dryer to damped the noise, I’m unable to do laundry for the next four days, at least. Not to mention that now I can’t easily warm my clothes in the morning, or my bedclothes at night.
This model no longer is manufactured and many if not most of the parts no longer available. There’s a chance it will need to be replaced (especially since the lint trap also is broken, and that part can’t be gotten), which means it could be a week before I’m able to do any laundry. There’s a laundromat four blocks away, but I’ve no way to bring my clothes there, would prefer not to have to sacrifice any money to having to pay for laundry, and the effort of dragging things there and back would trigger fatigue pretty quickly.
Blame the dryer, blame the handyman, or blame my brain. Whatever the case, file this under I remain more or less constantly just treading water—and now I can’t even dry off.