Getting it to the car was an ordeal. Ron helped me load it into the back of my ancient Honda CR-V—a 2004 with two hundred thousand miles and a check engine light that had been on so long I’d stopped noticing it. The washing machine barely fit, and I had to tie the back hatch down with bungee cords.
The kids argued the entire drive home about who had to sit in the middle seat—the only one with a working seatbelt latch. Milo lost the argument and pouted the entire way, which was standard.
“You’re so strong, Dad,” Nora said sweetly as we pulled into the apartment complex parking lot.
I gave her a look through the rearview mirror. “You’re buttering me up so you don’t have to help carry this upstairs.”
“Is it working?”
“No. Grab that side.”
Between me, Nora, and a lot of awkward maneuvering, we got the washing machine up the stairs and into our apartment. I hooked it up to the water line—which thankfully used the same connections as the old machine—and leveled it as best I could with a wrench and some cardboard shims.
“Okay,” I said, wiping sweat from my forehead. “Test run. Empty load. If it explodes, we run.”
“That’s terrifying,” Milo said from behind the couch, where he’d taken cover.
I added a tiny bit of detergent, closed the lid, and turned the dial to a short wash cycle. Water started filling the drum with a sound that was louder than it should be but not actively alarming.
The cycle started. The drum began to turn.
Everything seemed fine.
Then I heard it.
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