Storing Up Trouble

I had two major tasks for the weekend: pick up a birthday present and replace the door seal on the washing machine. Unfortunately, both were pretty urgent.

And I achieved neither.

Oddly, the biggest problem with getting the birthday present was just finding any item in the approximate price range - I saw lots of items that were too low, and a very nice item that was about twice the budget, but only a tiny number that were about right - and most of those I didn't like.

That was Saturday, and was pretty disheartening.

Then on Sunday I had to change the door seal on the washing machine. I've done this once before on another machine, and it's an absolutely horrible job - but it's a horrible job that costs about £25 and adds a few years of life to a washing machine, which is a bit better than replacing the whole thing.

As anticipated, this was a terrible job, that has left my hands shredded. But, somehow, I did manage to get it done... mostly.

Naturally, there was a wrinkle - at the last step when reconnecting the power, the wall socket decided not to play ball and broke apart. The upshot of this was that the washing machine was completely out of action, and indeed left in a somewhat dangerous condition. So that's tonight's job.

The annoying thing here is that, on both counts, leaving the jobs in an incomplete step is just storing up trouble for the future. The birthday in question isn't about to be cancelled or to move to a different date. And we can't not have a washing machine for any length of time (plus, as I said, it's somewhat dangerous). So those are tasks that must be addressed soon - and done so when I have that bit less time than at the weekend.

(And that isn't to mention the other task I now have looming, which I'd decided not to address yesterday in order to make time for the washing machine... and which now needs to be dealt with today. That's only a matter of twenty minutes or so, but it's another task on a day without enough time as it is.)

Oh well. Sometimes, things just suck and you end up in a hole. And then, sometimes, you get to climb out of that hole, and that's good.

#5: "Book of Swords, Part I", edited by Gardner Dozois