We took turns charmingly working through our denial (Why don’t you try running it again? Why don’t you try running it again?) and then waited for the other person to do something. More specifically, he waited for me to deal with the sodden mass while he took care of some work emails and I waited for him to put down his laptop and offer to help deal with the sodden mass. Because even though our familial division of labor leaves me in charge of laundry, a broken washer seemed an extreme circumstance—the domestic equivalent of Air Force One going haywire during a tour of the Middle East. Reinforcements clearly would need to be called in. And it’s not like any message in his in-box was a matter of life or death. Sure he’s an emergency room doctor, but if something were truly urgent wouldn’t they call?

Eventually I caved and asked for his help even though I like asking for help about as much as, well, my husband. We tersely rung and hung the clothes to drip their excess water overnight on the front porch so they wouldn’t require five hours in the dryer or mildew before I was able to work up the fortitude required for a trip to the laundromat to re-wash them. I likened us briefly to pioneers—rich, privileged pioneers who spend too much money at Baby Gap—and my husband got online to schedule a visit from a Sears repair guy before packing what clean clothes he had left for his trip.

Myron was from another era himself—more 1950s than 1850s, but definitely not of this millennium. He appeared to have been sent to our house directly from Central Casting, perfectly embodying “Sears-issue washing machine repair guy.” Blue pants and collared shirt, red toolbox (okay, it was more of a stiff nylon bag than a box, but it was red!), and an unassuming but businesslike demeanor. When I mentioned at one point that my husband was on his way to visit a faraway friend, Myron told me I was a great wife. “Mine won’t even let me go to the gym without giving me grief!”

He undid two screws and lifted off the entire front of the machine (who knew?!) and quickly ascertained that the drain pump was shot—likely because “something small” had wormed its way into the motor and jammed up the works. (Baby socks, anyone?) He showed me where the pump was located and explained that we could save a couple hundred dollars if my husband replaced it himself. Great wife that I am, I laughed and told him about the time my husband started an actual fire once while attempting to install a sconce.

The truth is, neither my husband or I are great with home repair. He lacks patience and critical attention to detail (like shutting off the power before doing electrical work)—traits I assume he does possess in his work life. I lack motivation and follow-through (like finishing painting the doorframe in the bathroom—a project I started when I was five months pregnant with my now eighteen-month-old). Sometimes I also lack patience and critical attention to detail (like installing bathroom towel racks without a level or a toilet paper holder without measuring how close to put the arm-thingies to create the right tension in the rod.) We both lack proper tools and knowledge of how to use the ones we do have. On the other hand, we like to save money where we can, and we like to experience that glowy gratification of doing something ourselves.

Which is how I ended up flooding our bathroom-slash-laundry room yesterday while the baby napped.

It’s pleasant, our bathroom/laundry room, one of the best spots in the house, actually, as we paid a professional to remodel it before the baby was born. He installed beadboard wainscoting and replaced the vinyl flooring with porcelain hex-tile and the gross particleboard cabinet sink with one that looks like a giant porcelain bowl sitting atop an antique side-table. (That makes it sound kind of weird, but it’s actually nice. Myron liked it. He said it was the neatest sink he’s ever seen—though I’m suddenly realizing Myron might have been prone to exaggeration.) Our contractor not only started painting all the walls and woodwork but finished, too—even the doorframe. In a fit of brilliance one morning I clutched my lower back, thrust my pregnant belly out as far as it would go, and sweetly asked the contractor if he would possibly be so kind as to install the toilet paper holder? I watched as he not only measured the distance between the little arm things but used a level and a pencil—just like the instructions say to do!

Once I’d sorted out how to use a pair of needle-nose pliers I’d purchased for making jewelry to squeeze a wire holdy-thing (a “compression clamp,” apparently), I found myself holding a gushing hose over an 8-inch cake pan because I’d read online to put a “pan” down to catch “drips” during the repair. I hadn’t factored in the part about the washing machine being full of grimy water and this tube I was holding being the, ahem, drain tube. Thank god for procrastination, as I was able to sop up much of the flood with the tower of dirty laundry that had accumulated all week as I put off going to the dreaded laundromat.

After lining the tiled floor (whose grout will never be clean again—what kind of sadist chooses tiny tiles for a laundry room floor—tiny white tiles?) with wash cloths and onesies, I managed to replace the pump, reattach the tubes, reattach the compression clamps and the electrical wire (did I turn off the electricity before fiddling around with an electrical wire? I did not!), double and triple check all tubes and clamps, bleach out whatever had been growing on the inside of the basin during the machine’s week off-duty, and start a load of clothes before the baby woke.

Boo-yah.

Yes, I was proud. Yes, I was glowing. Yes, I was filled with the feeling of gratification that comes with doing something mechanical—something tangible with your hands other than tapping on a keyboard or trackpad or iPhone screen. Then I heard the machine start to drain, and my pride was quickly displaced by anxiety. What if I didn’t re-place the compression clamps tightly enough and they popped off and I flooded the bath-/laundry room when no one was around to notice and bail and mop? What if the flood were to wreck the wainscoting and the antique side table? The room would be ruined and I would have no one to blame.

As a teenager I accidentally flooded my parents’ house by leaving a tap in the “on” position when the water main was off and then going out for a few hours. I returned to sheets of water cascading from the upstairs bathroom into the living room and from the living room into the basement, where the cats cowered pathetically in a dry corner. Even though my parents never gave me a hard time, I’ve always felt horribly guilty, especially when I go back and visit and see the cracks in the ceiling that they’ve never gotten fixed and the water-marks on the boxes in the basement labeled “High School Yearbooks” and “Wedding Album.”

Suddenly $400 seemed like a small price to pay for peace of mind—both knowing a professional is doing what they do best and knowing if something did go wrong with the repair, you could blame them, not yourself. I’m not the litigious sort, but it does give me a certain satisfaction to lay blame where it is due—even if it’s just done quietly in my own head or in a little essay few people will read.

Will it surprise you to learn that my husband was the sadist who chose the tiny and unforgivingly white hex-tile?

He also was the one responsible for the wainscoting of questionable necessity and the antique-side-table-sink of questionable utility.

My husband is responsible for making our laundry room annoyingly impractical and my husband is responsible for making our laundry room the most beautiful room in the house—if you ignore the washer and dryer taking up one-third of the space. He beamed with pride when he returned from his trip and learned I’d fixed the machine on my own. He didn’t even ask if I’d double-checked the clamps, which is more than I can say for myself if the circumstances were reversed.

Then I began another load, and I saw him tense up when the washer started to drain. “Is that safe?” he asked. “It sounds…wet in there.”

I sighed unnecessarily heavily and headed to the basement to move the important stuff to a corner not underneath the laundry room. You never know what might happen—or, come to think of it, whose fault it may turn out to be.