Tumble Dryer: An Ode

O Tumble Dryer, why did you have to leave me so?

How am I supposed to dry our clothes, without your hot air that blows?

You’ve left me writing an ode to you with wet school trousers

pressed damply against my back.

And stiff knickers that dried on the radiator,

Scratching uncomfortably up my…bottom.

O Tumble Dryer, to work in a laundrette I don’t have a burning ambition

But when you blew up and electrocuted my husband,

You selfishly left me in that very position.

Now you sit broken in our kitchen like some piece of obscure art

Taunting me with your lack of drying power

And not caring that you’ve ripped out my heart.

O Tumble Dryer, I know you used to carelessly shrink our stuff

And rip holes in undies too as if the gift of doll-sized clothing wasn’t enough.

But I’d much prefer sleeves resting an inch short of the wrists

And the kids’ trousers still swinging above their socks at mid-calf

Than to feel like Dot Cotton exclaiming, Ooo I saaay!’

With a faaag hanging out of my maaarf.

O Tumble Dryer, you know how to iron I really hate;

My house is enough of a shit-hole, without adding this to my plate!

Creased clothing surrounds me like the stuff of nightmares

Curled collars and hems that refuse to lie flat

An air hockey table that’s full of half-dry clothes

And a pile of folded up tops that are now a bed for the cat.

O Tumble Dryer, you’ve turned our home into a place of doom.

And created a chamber of torture, inside our once-cosy bathroom.

Gone are the days of fun bath-times, a wind-down before going to bed;

Does it make you proud to turn joyous laughter into crying?

You’ve made once fluffy towels now resemble coarse sandpaper

That remove their top layer of skin when we’re drying.

O Tumble Dryer, our bedding creaks on turning and pillows scratch our faces

And our jeans are now so rigid that we can’t bend our knees to tie our laces.

I know you used to shudder and shake just like a demon possessed

And we could hear you clearly over the blaring  T.V.

But I miss you and mourn you, O Drying One

And just wish that you could come back to me.