Here I sit, a silent partner in the family, the old Maytag washer they purchased over 10 years ago. Ten years. I think that’s a record. They brag about me.

I’ve worked harder than any of them, and now I sit waiting for some new kid on the block to arrive, carried by strangers with dirty hands to disconnect me from the water lines, and haul me to a truck while the neighbors watch. Embarrassing.

You’ve seen what happens to old washers. They dump us in a mountain of trash, where birds dump on us, and we bake in the sun until the rain rusts us.

So here I sat day after day, year after year, back in this room with no windows, waiting to be turned on. It’s my job. I’m a Maytag.

Yes, I remember the bright showroom, where I sat for days with other brand new white washers and dryers, but memories fade like cheap shirts.

How proud we were to be Maytags. I knew I wouldn’t be under the Christmas tree or even in the kitchen, but maybe on a sun porch. Where’s the sun porch? This is no sun porch. It’s a tiny room called the “laundry” room, where I sit next to a new dryer that doesn’t talk.

A laundry room is really a dumpster for Christmas tree ornaments, ancient posters, shoes too tight for old feet, old trousers that no longer fit.

See that pile of sweaters over there? They were too full of memories to just toss out on the street with broken clocks and tattered posters. So here they sit in morbid silence. They annoy me.

For over 10 years no servicemen have had to tend to me. I’m proud of that. For 10 years I inhaled the grime of dinner parties and anniversaries along with his cheap spaghetti sauce and coffee stains, his beloved wine, grass stains and someone’s makeup on the collars.

It wasn’t hers. I know hers. But I’ve kept my lid shut. We’re famous for keeping our lids shut. Maytags never gossip.

So here I’ve sat in winter nights and summer mornings, while the owners changed their many vacuum cleaners, mops and brushes over and over. That’s what a Maytag does.

Did I act up? No, sir. I’m a Maytag washer, a member of a proud line. Maytags have been moved from house to house, city to city and given as wedding presents. We have even been mentioned in personal wills.

See that shiny dryer over there? That’s the third one they’ve had since I’ve been here. Does it talk to me? No! It’s so new we don’t even speak the same language. It even has a manual. A lot of good that’ll do them.

They’ve put the albums of old pictures back here, of children petting long-dead dogs and caged birds, graduations and weddings, in broken frames waiting to be repaired.

I should be waiting to be repaired. I heard him on his phone. It’s a small thing he told them, but why bother when something else would happen. Something else? I shudder.

Repaired? What does that mean? Maytag scorns the word. We’re unsung heroes, warriors of the battle against nosebleeds and spillage.

OK, they’re here with the new Maytag. I can’t look. I’m ready.

I whisper to the new one in passing, “Keep your lid shut, nobody likes a tattler.”

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer. 

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