Member-only story
The Time I Totaled the Washing Machine
From the “you can’t Google this” file
To understand how it happened, first you have to know that the lower part of our driveway was very steep, as steep as one of those streets in San Francisco where you have to curb your wheels when you park and you think you’re going to lose your balance when you get out of your car. Next, you should also be aware that the driveway, though so very steep, was not so very long. This was coastal California, after all, where there is not usually room for such luxuries as an extended driveway. Finally, and of course obviously given what occurred, the laundry area was on the wall at the front of the garage, or, looked at from a different perspective, at the very top of the very steep driveway.
It was early in the afternoon, just after lunch, and I was bringing the kids home from preschool. I always brought them home from preschool, and things often seemed to happen when I did. Usually it was pretty routine, like the neighbor boys looking for their baseballs in our yard, but occasionally it was more surprising, like the time we found our indoor cat on the stairs with a dead bird in his mouth.
In any case, on this particular day, I pulled into the driveway as usual, and had to tap a bit on the accelerator, also as usual, to get the car to transition from the steep driveway to…
