Weekly Washing Woes

A friend was talking about the old twin‑tub washing machines that finally went out of fashion in the early 1980s with the advent of modern washers. I couldn’t help but think back to my experience with a twin‑tub. If you don’t know what they are, then you’re fortunate.

I had three young children at the time, so my twin‑tub was always on. Some days I needed to do two separate loads just to keep on top of things. It was a particularly busy day; the children were getting under my feet, and I had two loads to get through. The first lot was washed and spun. The second load had just started its wash cycle, and I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the machine stopped suddenly in mid‑wash.

I was aghast. I couldn’t take the children and the washing down to my mother’s or my mother‑in‑law’s. My mother never cleaned — she was far too glamorous for that. She had a housekeeper everywhere we lived, even in the outback of Australia and on the edge of the South African jungle. She always managed to find someone to employ.

I couldn’t think who to call for help. Then suddenly, I had a brainwave. Living in isolated places, you see people using all sorts of strange methods to solve tricky situations. I vaguely remembered watching someone siphon petrol from a car into a can.

What a brainwave.

I took the long tube from the washing machine and placed one end into the filthy, soapy water. Then, without further ado, I stood over the machine, put the dry end of the tube in my mouth, and took a gawd almighty suck.

It all happened so fast. Suddenly I was choking, unable to take in air. The filthy, smelly, soapy water clogged my throat. No air at all was getting into my lungs — not through my throat, not through my nose. I staggered back and collapsed on the floor.

Just then, my children came into the room. My eldest daughter wasn’t quite five. Her little sister was three, and my son — the baby — was seventeen months old. The four‑year‑old was parading around the house with one of my bras around her neck (unfortunately, a tatty old one). Her little sister had a black stocking hanging from her arm. My baby son was caked in makeup and lipstick.

I think they realised Mummy was in trouble because I was pointing frantically at my throat. The clever little darlings panicked and ran straight out of the house, leaving me to my fate. I never found out which neighbour they went to first, but they came back very quickly with half the entire neighbourhood in tow.

Fortunately, the adults wasted no time. Someone called 999 for an ambulance. Others decided who would look after the children. The men started working on my washing machine. No one had a clue what had happened — the neighbourhood thought I’d had a heart attack.

At the hospital, I was rushed into the Crash Unit. Doctors and nurses hovered around me.

“Her pulse is extremely high,” one noted.

They all seemed to have something to say while I lay there, unable to speak, crying internally, WATER — I NEED WATER. No one could understand my blabbering.

I have no idea how long I lay there with doctors giving different opinions. Finally — I don’t know how I managed it — I croaked out one word:

“Water.”

A sharp nurse worked out what I was trying to say. She brought over a cup, held my head, and helped me sip it. Never before or since has anything tasted as wonderful as that fresh water.

Meanwhile, the endlessly kind neighbours looked after the children — feeding them, bathing them, getting them into bed, telling them stories. I could hardly look at them afterwards; they made such a fuss of me. For days they brought gifts. I never had the guts to tell them what really happened.

They couldn’t fix that nasty twin‑tub, so eight of the neighbours chipped in for a real washer/dryer — one that “drained automatically.”

I will always regret that I could never bring myself to tell those lovely neighbours that I was a plonker and an idiot.