When laundry day goes bad abroad

We are living in a vacation rental while we’re in Croatia. It’s mostly great and maintenance-free. Except for today.

We have a couple of extra sets of bedding and five large bath towels for the four of us. Since we are in Eastern Europe, we have no dryer. (They have no idea what they’re missing). This requires being strategic about when to wash the bedding and towels so everything is dry when you need it.

We’re down to one clean, dry towel and a winter weather forecast that is not looking good for drying anything. Most of the laundry that’s dry now is because I have the drying rack as close to the heater as possible.

Today, I’m troubleshooting a washer that won’t drain. The MacGyver in me led me to try to fix it myself instead of calling the apartment manager. I thought doing it myself would be more efficient. I’m starting to regret that decision. Sarge isn’t home, but he gave me helpful advice to “Google it.”

Google told me the best remedy to get the washer to empty was to clean the filter pump. I opened the filter cover before I got to the part of the instructions that said: “When you open the filter housing, there may be a large amount of water.”

I created a small flood in the bathroom. Four of our large, white towels are now pink with inky water from my jeans. There’s a pink stripe where there once was a white one down the side of my son’s track pants. My other son’s camouflage shirt now looks like it belongs in Barbie’s Dream House.

But I found the culprit. A tiny shell and fabric smaller than a sock got twisted in the filter. I think I fixed it.

Now I just need to wash the towels, try to de-pink everything and be patient as the laundry dries.

At least there’s a nice view out the window, even on a gloomy day. Life is full of trade-offs. I sure do miss my American washer and dryer. But I sure will miss this view when we leave.