RIP Emil, 25 December 2006 - 2 May 2010
Survived first proper day of Census service in the field. Annoyances were many but tolerable enough after the Gujarati Incident (I do have a couple Gujarati speakers, but scattered), and I could have scored a plateful of dolmades if I'd had anywhere to carry them. (The one I ate there was good, though.) The day mostly started going downhill when I got home and threw my work clothes into the wash, because about five minutes into the cycle there were Sudden Ominous Noises which quickly led into "...WTF IT'S NOT WORKING AND THERE IS NO REPAIR MONEY".
We got the wet clothes bundled together to take over to the laundromat and happened to bump into All-The-Way-Upstairs on the way to the car, so with my newfound reserve of cheek from two days of knocking on strangers' doors I begged a favor and went up to put my wash in their machine. (BTW, apparently the water-heater's thermocouple wasn't the only thing in the building that's nearing the end of its life-cycle, everyone's washers and fridges are starting to pop off...) I came back down and decided to bail out the washer so at least it wouldn't be sitting there stinking until we could afford to call in the repair guys...
...And discovered the actual casualty of this tale:
It had been in my shirt pocket, because this Job involves writing down times and I don't have a watch as such... and I never wear shirts with pockets, so I only cleared out my trousers when I loaded in the wash. And it was just the right size to become wedged between the agitator and the tub, alas, which was the Sudden Ominous Noises of an agitator that was no longer agitating. The silver lining here is that it was nearing the end of its useful lifespan (as in just Friday I was having issues again with the buttons breaking down, in fact) and was already slated to be replaced with the money from the aforementioned Job, so as degrees of heartbroken go at least I'm not having to replace the entire bloody washer/dryer combo. And at least it was the old one and not his as-yet-theoretical replacement.
And since nobody ever did figure it out, Emil was, of course, mint-green.
We got the wet clothes bundled together to take over to the laundromat and happened to bump into All-The-Way-Upstairs on the way to the car, so with my newfound reserve of cheek from two days of knocking on strangers' doors I begged a favor and went up to put my wash in their machine. (BTW, apparently the water-heater's thermocouple wasn't the only thing in the building that's nearing the end of its life-cycle, everyone's washers and fridges are starting to pop off...) I came back down and decided to bail out the washer so at least it wouldn't be sitting there stinking until we could afford to call in the repair guys...
...And discovered the actual casualty of this tale:
It had been in my shirt pocket, because this Job involves writing down times and I don't have a watch as such... and I never wear shirts with pockets, so I only cleared out my trousers when I loaded in the wash. And it was just the right size to become wedged between the agitator and the tub, alas, which was the Sudden Ominous Noises of an agitator that was no longer agitating. The silver lining here is that it was nearing the end of its useful lifespan (as in just Friday I was having issues again with the buttons breaking down, in fact) and was already slated to be replaced with the money from the aforementioned Job, so as degrees of heartbroken go at least I'm not having to replace the entire bloody washer/dryer combo. And at least it was the old one and not his as-yet-theoretical replacement.
And since nobody ever did figure it out, Emil was, of course, mint-green.