True story:
At midnight Studly Doright and I were sitting in our oversized whirlpool tub. I was on my cell phone listening earnestly to a man speaking French while Studly looked to me for his next move. Then things really began to heat up. I know what you’re thinking: Ew!
Trust me, it wasn’t kinky, but it was and continues to be, a mystery. Read on.
Studly Doright and I are early to bed, early to rise people. Seldom do we stay up much past 9 p.m., but last night we had dinner with friends at Angelo’s in Panacea and didn’t get home until 10:30. It was a great evening on Ochlocknee Bay, but by the time we’d dropped off our friends we could barely keep our eyes open.
Once in bed we exchanged goodnight kisses, and Studly was snoring gently before I could even say “amen.” I had just drifted into that stage of twilight sleep, a dream on the tip of my brain, when a roar erupted from the bathroom. Not like a lion’s roar, more like the sound of an approaching demonic tornado from the movie Twister, or the sound an airplane’s engines make just before takeoff.
Studly jumped (crawled) from the bed and ran (limped) into the bathroom. I cowered. I cower well. Within a few seconds the roaring ceased and he returned to bed.
“What was that?”
“Just the drying cycle on the tub.”
“How’d you get it to stop?”
“Pushed a button.”
“You’re my hero.”
Again Studly was snoring before I even shut my eyes. Several minutes passed, before Roooooooaaaaaaaarrrr!
I got up with him this time, so I could see which button Studly pushed to keep him from pushing it again.
“Which button did you push?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t read the screen so I just pushed a button.”
At least I could read the instrument panel without my glasses, so I did the right thing and pushed a button that read, EXIT. Immediately, the drying cycle stopped. Problem solved. Back to bed.
Roooooooooaaaaaaaaarrrr!
“Dammit!”
Back to the tub. I suggested that Studly go find the breaker switch for the tub and turn it off. He took his phone to the garage while I sat in the tub with my phone and we talked as he scanned the circuit breakers.
“Did that turn it off?”
“Nope.”
“How about that one?”
“Nope.”
This fascinating conversation went on for a good five minutes, but we never hit pay dirt. When he came back in he stepped into the tub with me armed with the tub’s owner’s manual. I noticed a contact number on the instrument panel and thought, “What the heck? I’m calling.”
So at midnight I called the customer service line at BainUltra. Immediately, someone answered. In French. I don’t speak French. Fortunately I recognized the cadence of a voice mail message directing me to press two for English and to just stay on the line for French. Quickly I pressed two and was directed to a menu, in heavily accented English, only to be told that all customer service reps were busy and that we were to leave a detailed message as to our problem and they would return our call as soon as possible.
We’re still waiting, unless they’ve called Studly on the golf course this morning. That’ll tick him off.
The dryer went through two more loud cycles before it was completely done for the night. We did figure out how to reduce the amount of power it was using and lowered the temperature of the dryer after I realized my bum was getting hot as I perched on the side of the tub.
This morning I’ve read the entire trouble shooting section of the manual. Nowhere does it cover demonic possession or ghostly hauntings, but I have a feeling that’s what our French-Canadian friends are going to tell us when they finally call.
Peace, people!
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