Washing machine use directions:

1. Turn the on the water main. That’s right, the water main is set to OFF until you choose to run the washing machine, at which point it must be manually turned to the ON position. My parents turn the water main OFF after each use of the washing machine.

2. Go ape-shit. So after 33 years of never having experienced such a washing machine configuration I was met with disappointment because I had potentially caused damage to the washing machine by not supplying it with water while on. They may have mentioned this odd rule once before but, in all honesty, 9 of every 10 words they utter are dimly perceived like the announcer’s words during a baseball game on the radio on a rainy Sunday afternoon. You heard him, you knew he was speaking yet you couldn’t recall a single word or phrase. But I do believe, this time, I placed this rule in the mental trash bin with complete intention.


I’m confounded by this paltry scuttlebutt for two reasons and believe there to be some underlying cause to their actions.

First, It seems quite odd to me that my parents, both of them, were livid about this non-event. My brother was visiting the day of the wrong-doing, from his own home (he’s got a house!), and overheard my father ask my mother which of them should ‘talk to him about it’. ‘Talk to me about it’. I hope Owen Wilson’s parents care so much about his heroin addiction as my parents do about their precious washing machine. At 16 I was scolded less severely for drinking a case of my dad’s beer.

Second, they had never had this routine before moving into the Pelican, have only lived here two years, and we’re now astounded that the son they raised to be a law-abiding citizen, had violated the sanctity of washing machine, and their precious bi-laws, in such a way. The bi-laws. The fucking bi-laws for Del Boca Vista (Pelican Place for my non-Seinfeld friends) state that ‘Each owner is responsible for all water damage resulting from their appliances’. As a condo owner who is friends with other condo owners, I believe that nobody reads the bi-laws. It’s a chunk of papers that you stick into a shoebox. As long as a neighbor isn’t having goat-sex, mutilating goats or loudly sucking dick for crack cocaine, which would cause one to search for a technicality to evict the freak, there is no logical reason to read them. But I guess some people over the age of 50 find bi-laws a form of entertainment. I will suggest some more: adding a second coat of white paint to your white walls and/or photo cataloging every belonging in your house alphabetically.

I think my mom may be that annoying tenant who attends every home-owmer’s meeting citing passages with old testament-like assertion. ‘Thout shalt not have leaky pipes. Lest the association will strike down upon thee with great vengance and furious anger…’

Yes, I am only 33 years of age, not 50+, yet in my years I have never experienced such a water-washing machine configuration. I call bullshit on my parents, the HOA and society at large.

It is my contention that there exists a 50+, mind-altering, space-ship expecting, juice drinking cult within the very walls of the Pelican Place.

But, luckily for me, the Cult Member’s Association documents state that anyone can join as long as you co-habitate with a person over the age of 50. See you on Galgamek!