Infinite knowledge

I broke down and called someone to service my dryer.  It’s a different someone than we called the last time and this guy comes highly recommended from no less than four people.  His name is Ron, which also happens to be the name of our wonderful mechanic.  If appliance Ron turns out to be as great as mechanic Ron, I will officially have a new respect for the name and discard any mental associations with Ron Jeremy or Ronald McDonald.

I was really hoping to take the Dutch way out with this dryer and not have to pay at all.  My parents and grandma each have a service plan through Michcon that brings a tech out to the house free of charge when things like this break.  My dad talked the plan up because they had problems with their washer twice this year and didn’t have to pay a thing.

I did eventually listen to my father and signed us up.  On Sunday.  Right after the dryer died.  I tried to figure how much time I should let lapse before calling them and saying, “Well gee wiz, would you look at that?  My dryer’s done gone and broke on me!”  Unfortunately, after reading the plan’s terms of service online, I figured there was no way my lies would be effective enough to pull my dyer out the “pre-existing condition” category.

So I called Ron’s and was asked what kind of dryer I have.  I should have expected this little bit of information would be needed, but I didn’t have it.  I did not know what brand of dryer I owned.  I knew it wasn’t the same brand as the washer but that it could be the same brand as the refrigerator.  I was a little embarrassed in admitting my ignorance and was told this information would be needed before the service call on Thursday.

I had to call Nathan and ask what brand of dryer we own.  He knew because he had been looking up ways he might be able to fix it.  I really didn’t like admitting I didn’t know, not because I’m a woman and the one who washes the clothes, which I am, but because I’m a woman and am supposed to know everything, which I sort of do.

I’ll concede to not being a genius.  I don’t have a ton of common sense sometimes and, even though I’m a grad student studying English literature, will visit Merriam-Webster online just to make sure I’m using a word like “concede” correctly.

I like to think that women know it all.  We are the ones who keep the world together.  We get our loved ones ready in the morning.  We know the numbers to the daycare provider and the pediatrician by heart.  We know who likes peanut butter and jelly, who likes bologna and the name of junior’s hockey coach.  We can read people well.  We interpret body language and can tell a good egg from a bad one.  We’re not perfect, but we’re perfectly comfortable with putting a hell of a lot of trust in our intuition.  If something feels right, it’s probably all right.

It’s getting late and I was going to turn this post into something insightful about suffrage and voting and how we (meaning we women) have only been able to get out and vote for 88 years and how all that insightfulness and wisdom went to waste for so long.  My great grandma Mahoney turned eighteen four days after the presidential election in 1920.  I have no idea what the legal voting age was in Michigan at that time, but if it was eighteen I’d like to think she was upset about missing it.  The woman got married at fourteen by lying about her age on her marriage license, but she probably couldn’t lie to the federal government.

So anyway, I voted yesterday.  I set my alarm and got out the door an hour early because I could.  There were lots of people there hoping to cast their ballots before work.  Some had their children with them and I overheard one parent say to her daughter, “When you’re eighteen you can come here and vote.”

Please note she did not say, “When you’re grown up, make sure you know the brand names of all your major appliances.”

It’s a Whirlpool, by the way.  Just so you know.