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| Scott and John attacking the job with resolve |
On Thursday, using one of the sharpest knives in the drawer (from my great new Henckel knife set, a Christmas gift from Trudy and John), I sliced my left thumb while cutting bread for dinner. Yes, I do know how to use a knife safely, but I may need some retraining. Anyway, the cut required a rather clumsy bandaging job that impedes motion. This is, of course, a lame excuse for what happened yesterday morning.
As I always do, I cleaned the lint filter after a load of laundry. I noticed a layer of lint in the slot that houses the filter, so I used the previously successful methodology of dampening a paper towel, folding it up, and swiping it along the lint layer. The first pass was successful so I got greedy and went for couple of small clumps lower down in the opening. To get a stubborn ball of lint on the left, I transferred the folded paper towel tool from my right hand to my left, but the instant I inserted it, my injured thumb lost its grip and the paper towel fell far down the slot.
Oh oh. I thought turning on the dryer might dislodge it, but the noise was awful so I knew that couldn't be good. I tried to reach for paper towel with the pointy end of a long paint brush, but was afraid of dropping it so I abandoned the effort and realized I needed help. I just didn't feel up to confessing my stupidity to Bob, so I let it go for the time being.
Fortunately, Chris invited us to lunch and I was able to tell my tale of woe during a fortuitous discussion of crazy dumb things! Scott promised to have a look that afternoon.
In the end, Chris, John and Scott all got involved. The attempts included pulling out the dryer from the wall, removing screws, vacuuming the slot, detaching the vent and using an industrial blower to get the paper towel out. Success! Bounty paper towels are certainly heavy duty, because the item was dislodged intact, with a small amount of lint attached to its surface.
The dryer was soon back in position for a test run. It works great and, as recommended by the guys, in the future I'll use a vacuum to remove any lint that escapes the trap. Although you can't fix stupid, I may be just smart enough not to avoid that same dumb mistake next time!
