Shiny Object Saturday: The World’s Sparkliest Washing Machine

Visiting my parents’ house is like staying at a luxury hotel/model home where you might have to make your own bed, but the sheets are yummy-fresh, the food is fabulous, the bathrooms are spotless, the company is scintillating and there’s always some new, shiny object to keep life from getting dull. I always hate to leave.

Yesterday, soon after we arrived, we found ourselves gathered around my folks’ brand new washer/dryer set, watching a load of my fine washables swish around. I immediately remembered my parents telling me how, back in the 1950s, the first family in a neighborhood to get a television would have to invite all their friends into their living room to see the thing. Yes, their new HE washing machine is that cool. Plus, it has a clear lid, so you can watch it suds up and rinse and spin without injury to yourself of others.

Here’s a pic of their Whirlpool HE Cabrio. I fear my cellphone camera can’t do it justice.

Look at all the buttons! It has a countdown timer that tells you how long the wash cycle will last and it even weighs the clothes so it automatically knows how much water to add. It sprinkles water and detergent over the clothes as they’re needed. Plus, it holds massive amounts of blue jeans or blankets or curtains or whatever.

The inside of the tub:

One of my former mothers-in-law (mother-in-laws? that doesn’t sound right) used to take all of her family’s laundry to the laundromat instead of just buying a washer and dryer. I’m not sure why she did it. It wasn’t a question of money. Maybe she liked to get it all done at once. I, too, dread the slog of daily laundry loads, or the ginormous piles that seem to sprout like mushrooms when I’m writing a lot. While my mom’s new washer/dryer set can handle double loads–as can the dryer–all the buttons and options make me want to sort clothes into terribly specific categories: black/gentle, white/hot, white/cold, pastels/delicate/cold, blue jeans/cold, handwash/colors/cold…I did four separate loads last night. And because the machine is stingy on water and energy, I didn’t feel guilty about it.

I’ve seen HE detergents on the shelf for at least the past three years, so many people already have the machines, I’m sure. When it comes to electronic technology, we Benedicts are early adopters. Actually, my darling husband is the early adopter–he kindly drags me along. (It only took me four years to upgrade my Mac OS from Tiger to Snow Leopard…) But now that I’ve used one of these machines, I want, want, want. Laundry should be made to be as fun as possible, don’t you think?

Here’s one of the Cabrio’s many youtube.com how-to/why-to videos. It has far less charm than, say, a Reddy Kilowatt filmstrip, but it does describe fairly well how HE machines work.

BTW–They no longer manufacture the clear-lid models. Too bad.