Hey, wanna see something gross?

Sure you do. You know that even though the rational part of your brain knows you should say "no" when someone says that, you are always compelled to look anyway. Admit it.

So, I think our apartment may come equipped with the most poorly-designed clothes drier EVER. In the history of mankind. A clothes line strung up outside is a more impressive feat of engineering than this piece of crap. Now I know many of you who live in apartments are saying, "Wow! You have a washer and drier in your apartment! That's awesome!!" True. It is awesome. Dealing with my crappy drier is way better than shlepping my laundry to the basement or to the laundromat and feeding quarters into machines because at least I can do it in my PJs. So, I readily admit before I begin my story that I am being petty and, possibly, ungrateful and there are, I agree, probably starving children in Ethiopia who would LOVE to have my drier. Whatever. I'm still going to rant.

Lately our clothes have been taking progressively longer and longer to dry. The maintenance guy at our apartment says the drier is not broken. It's heating up and everything and we do clean the lint trap after every use, so nobody can fathom what the problem is. Here, let me show you. Here is a picture of our drier.


Seems simple, right? Nope! It turns out that our lint trap is easy to slip. A fair amount of the lint is wily enough to get through into the door and even up into the little grate! Steps 2 an 3 are supposed to be lint-free, but, alas, our lint trap is asleep on the job. And you can't remove that grate in step 3 at all. So, apparently, you have to get out something long and skinny and, oh, maybe some eyebrow tweezers and pull out that sneaky lint. Evil, non-team-player, oh I'm better than the others so I can skip step 1 lint. Then, it also turns out that the door to the drier is entirely hollow. Lots of lint also stays in the door having a lint rave. So, you have to use one of those little Swiffer dusting thingies and stick it down in there and get SOME of the hard-partying door lint, but in order to get MOST of the door lint you have to do some minor surgery on the drier like so:

Yes, I tore apart the lint trap and then stuck my hand way down into the door. After all that, here is what I came up with:


Soggy, impacted lint...and lots of hair. Is it all mine? Doubtful. I don't think this drier was exactly pristine when we moved in.

So, can anyone explain to me why one would design a drier that would basically allow, oh, 99% of the lint to get through the lint trap and force people to practically go spelunking to get it out once their clothes started to come out all warm and steamy? I mean, this thing is maybe useful if you're running a Japanese restaurant and you need to get those little hand towels ready for your customers, but if it is actually intended to make clothes dry I contend that it is a piece of crap.

Anyway, I may never eat with my bare hands again, but my clothes will be dry, thank you very much!