1) There are more interesting things to look at, such as the view from my balcony, or the built-in seat in my shower.
2) The washing machine is standard-looking—white, with stylish touches of chrome—so it blends in rather nicely with my white kitchen walls.
3) It is in the corner of my kitchen,a not-very-fun part of the apartment where there is a not-very-interesting view.
4) Washing machines are common. You expect to see one. They are like shower curtains, or toilets. It would be more noticeable if I didn't have one.
It is worth clarifying one point: calling it a washing machine is slightly misleading because it also is a dryer. It took me some time to come to terms with this—the combination sounds as plausible as a freezer/oven—but after doing a little research, I found out they are quite common, especially in Singapore.
The machine has a countdown timer that tells you how long until your clothes will be ready. One Saturday, I was about to leave to meet up with my parents and my brother. Before I left, I checked to see if my clothes were almost done. The timer said "15." This was at 1:45 in the afternoon, and there seemed to be something fortuitous about my washing finishing exactly at two o'clock. I decided to wait. (I partially blame this decision on my mother, whose genes I carry. She finds meaning in different times of the day and in certain number combinations. Had the timer said "14" or "16", I would have left, and I am not sure why).
Soon it was two o'clock and I went to get my clothes, and to my surprise, the machine said there were still six minutes to go before my clothes would be ready.
It ended up being, ironically, 15 more minutes after that. This was the first time the machine lied to me.
Last week, I stayed up so I could put another load on before I went to bed. It turned out to be a poor choice, as the machine promised it would be done by 10, yet wouldn't unlock its doors until 10:23 (another one of its fun attributes: the door locks, and because the manual is missing quite a few verbs, I cannot figure out the right button combination to unlock it). I unplugged the machine once, because it was nearly an hour behind schedule.
Now, instead of wondering why my machine blatantly deceives me, I simply appreciate my machine's optimism. I really think it believes it will get the job done when it says it will. It wants to live up to its promise, to impress me with its work ethic, but somehow it always fails to do so and ends up limping towards the finish, a good 20-40 minutes later than it said it would. I now see the countdown timer as a rough guess, a potential best-case scenario. This has helped.
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| Probably anywhere from 1:54-2:13 left. |
Another wonderful thing about my machine is that it is the slowest washing machine/dryer on the market. That is probably not true, actually, but for a small load it takes roughly four hours to do the complete wash/dry combination. I have played around with the settings, but if you try and speed up the process, the clothes come out damp. Four hours, it turns out, is about as good as it gets. The "quiet" setting takes north of seven hours.
Fantastic, I say. In a world where we are constantly pressing to be faster, more efficient, more convenient, I do appreciate a reminder to celebrate patience, to slow down and appreciate life. There is something refreshingly honest about a machine that has the courage to say "I will do my best, at my own pace. If that is not enough, then perhaps you should buy another machine."
The machine also moves by itself.
You see, the machine has a motor, which then spins the drum inside at insane speeds (the fastest is 1,400 rpms per minute). Now, you might be thinking (as I did), "if the machine has such a powerful motor, why does it take four hours for a single load to be washed and dried?" I don't have an answer.
But what I can tell you is this: when you set the machine for anything over 600 rpms, the machine begins to rumble and shake violently—so much so that it actually moves on its own. Watching it at 1,400 rpms is pretty spectacular because you are certain it is about to break, or explode. This means that if you make the mistake—as I did—of trying to put things on top of the dryer—like washing machine powder—the machine will shake so violently that whatever is on top will fall off and either break, or in the case of powder, spill all over the kitchen floor.
Fair enough. It wasn't advertised as a table.
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| Just where I left it. |
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| Perfectly lined up against the wall |
And then there's this, which is fantastic:
As you probably guessed, that little song lets you know that your clothes are ready. It has woken me up from a nap before. I sat by the machine for seven minutes to get that video—the timer read "2" the entire time. I only was able to get half the song because it went from "2" to "END" without going to "1." Yet another reason I respect my machine.
And that little jingle is for every time you power this guy on.
Imagine my surprise when I saw this exact model at Best—a store that sells these kinds of things in Singapore—and it was on sale. After the discount, it was the cheapest front-loading machine available by nearly $200.
I had a strong urge to buy it, and part of me still regrets that I didn't.
