The dryer stopped drying. It was getting increasingly sluggish, taking ever more time to dry a load that a few months ago would have finished in half an hour. I had been making due with damp clothes for a long time, draping them on banisters and chairs. When the weather was predictable I hung them outside.  I figured it was just something I had to live with, and saw no relationship between that fact and the frequency with which I emptied the lint catcher. For reasons I cannot justify I ignored the sign John had posted to remind me. It is not as if the task takes more than three seconds, tops. I just wasn't doing it.

 

John researched the problem online and watched You Tubes. Yesterday the replacement part arrived and he invested all evening and well into the night dissecting the appliance. He painstakingly extracted a truly embarrassing amount of gray fuzz. I leaped at the chance to do laundry this morning and was amazed at how warm and dry they were after only twenty minutes.

 

We had a conversation about the rain gutters as well. He has done an extravagant amount of sleuthing, trying to understand the problems around rainwater and its solutions. He said it would not be hard to design hinged rain gutters that have to be cleaned every few years, but no one wants that. They opt for the maintenance free promises, even though they cannot continue to perform over the long haul.

 

There is a market for maintenance free appliances. This expectation bleeds into our relationships. John and I were gushy gushy for the first few years, talking endlessly, dashing to see each other after an interminable time apart.

 

But thirty years later the ongoing removal of resentment is as appealing as scooping lint or wet leaves.