We cashed in our frequent flyer miles for a luxury washer and dryer. This is one of those tests to see if you’re old. Would you rather: A) fly to France for free and have wine and a croque monsieur in a picturesque outdoor café in Paris while discussing literature and art, or B) get a new washer and dryer? The latter? ARE YOU SURE YOU HEARD THE QUESTION, MA’AM, AND DID YOU WANT THE SENIOR DISCOUNT?

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It seemed like a good idea at the time. Our last washer and dryer were getting old, the airline kept increasing the number of miles required for a free trip, and travel isn’t as compelling during an age of worldwide plagues. We’ve already been around some of the world. Our house is nice, nobody wants to kill us here (although the cats seem to be scheming occasionally), and there are no labs experimenting with novel coronaviruses in our general vicinity. So, yeah, if we were rarely going to leave the house, superiorly clean sweatpants through advanced laundry technology seemed cool.

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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

— Arthur C. Clarke

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The washer has eight cycles, two of which are waterproof and downloaded. I do not have any waterproof things to wash. I’m not exactly sure what the waterproof things other people need to wash in their washing machines might be. (Raincoats, hiking stuff, ducks’ asses?) Maybe the washing machine designer is an outdoor enthusiast who had the waterproofing washed out of his convertible hiking pants one too many times. Whatever. Not everything has to be specific to me. I am not a laundry elitist. But you have to admit that it sounds oxymoronic to have a waterproof cycle on a machine whose sole purpose is to wash things in water.

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The downloaded button is the real enigma. Who are the early adopters who want to download a cycle to their washing machine after first installing the washing machine’s app on their phone? I have no idea. I would expound on this, but since I am too much of a laundry Luddite to download the app, I have no idea what wonders await in the downloaded wash cycles.

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Okay, fine. I downloaded the app purely for journalistic reasons and connected the washer. The dryer wouldn’t connect even though I pushed the WIFI button one thousand five hundred and sixteen times (approximately). The highlights of the downloadable washer cycles include special cycles for baby bibs, baby wear, children’s wear, collar stains, collars and cuffs, curtains, delicate dresses, dress shirts, juice and food stains, pet hair and odor, lingerie, and pillow covers.

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I Have Questions

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Aren’t baby bibs technically baby wear? Aren’t babies technically children? What’s the defining difference between baby wear and children’s wear? Why would the age of the person whose clothes are being washed matter? And if it does, why is there no senior clothes cycle? What is the difference between a collar stain cycle, and a collar and cuffs cycle? Why is there not a cuff stain cycle? A delicate dress cycle but no regular dress cycle? What makes pillow covers so special? Is there an online course I can take?

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My washing machine overwhelms me with its options and its sophistication.

— Uma Thurman

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I’m comforted that Uma understands my pain. Besides the ON button, the PAUSE button, and the dial with its eight difference cycles, there are twenty-six other buttons on the machine, for a variety of options including water temperature, spin velocity, soil level, special care, signal volume, custom something that I haven’t figure out (and never will), and a selection labeled WASH PLUS. I’m having a hard time imagining that any combination of these options would specifically apply to baby bibs, but could not also apply to baby wear unless some adjustment is made. Sure, bibs get pretty dirty, but onesies are no picnic either in the realm of baby stains.

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There is No Wet Without Water

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The WATER PLUS option is very important because the washer is high efficiency. This means the washer’s smart brain doesn’t allow enough water into the machine to actually wet all the clothes, so the WASH PLUS selection has to be chosen to actually get your clothes cleaned, other than by osmosis. (Which I am pretty sure is not a recommended laundry cleaning method.) We can save the planet, but only by wearing dingy, slightly odorous clothes. Please check your clean laundry privilege.

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Instead of a setting for large or small loads, which would entail the machine trusting your judgment, the smart washer spins the laundry for a while after it’s loaded into the washer — kind of feeling the clothes up and weighing them — and then decides the minimal amount of water to use. If your dirty undies happen to get flung to the top of the heap during the laundry spinning phase, they can sometimes escape getting wet during the wash cycle, but this is a small price to pay for technological excellence. If you prefer guaranteed submersion of your clothes, you can use the WATER PLUS option, which gives you more water. (Obviously, having this option is a blatant admission of water insufficiency in the normal wash cycle, she says directly to the jury while pleading her case.)

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Unfortunately, the machine doesn’t allow you to push the WATER PLUS button until the wash cycle has started. It wants to make sure that you really, really want that extra water that will get all of your clothes wet (and presumably clean) but also hasten the environmental apocalypse. So, you have to load your smart washer, start the cycle, wait a moment, pause the cycle, hit the water plus option, and then restart the cycle. Or you can let the washer start washing the clothes with not enough water, stop the cycle completely, then restart the machine. This will make the washer do the spinning-and-weighing-your-clothes thing again, but since the clothes are already wet (partially) they will weigh more, and the machine will allocate more water because it thinks the load is larger. Fooling the machine will shore up your confidence that you are smarter than the smart washer and will increase your self-esteem while you are in a battle of wits with a household appliance.

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Frustrated smart washer owners have found these workarounds and posted them online in an effort to help others rage against the smart machines.

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I’m pretty sure this is how the war in the Terminator movies started.

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As mentioned, the too-smart-for-its-own-good washer has a Wi-Fi button. So does the smart dryer, but I will give the dryer a break for now, because the washer is obviously the dominant laundry partner. It’s a bit easier to work around the dryer tech and just use the same three or four buttons to dry the damn clothes, and I am afraid if I rag on both of the appliances, they will unify and conspire against me. They have WiFi. For all I know they can access the internet and read this article. I don’t want to risk my laundry capabilities, although I have a large rock in the yard and a hose connected to an unlimited water supply, if necessary.

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Men have become the tools of their tools.

— Henry David Thoreau

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The Wi-Fi button makes it possible for me to start the washer remotely. If I ever happen to be at a five-star French restaurant trying to recreate the trip to Paris we gave up for the smart washer and dryer, in between the escargot and steak frites I can take a moment to access the washer app and tell the washer to start washing our dirty underwear. Isn’t technology cool? Alas, the washer doesn’t actually leave its niche next to the dryer to go and collect our dirty clothes from the laundry hamper. I have to do that myself and load it into the machine before we head to the c̵h̵e̵a̵p̵ ̵I̵t̵a̵l̵i̵a̵n̵ ̵p̵l̵a̵c̵e̵ ̵a̵t̵ ̵t̵h̵e̵ ̵c̵o̵r̵n̵e̵r̵ five-star French restaurant, but it allows me to delay having to push some combination of the six bazillion options to turn on the washer until I’ve had p̵i̵z̵z̵a̵ ̵w̵i̵t̵h̵ ̵e̵x̵t̵r̵a̵ ̵c̵h̵e̵e̵s̵e̵ snails with butter and garlic, and a b̵o̵t̵t̵l̵e̵ glass of t̵h̵e̵ ̵c̵h̵e̵a̵p̵e̵s̵t̵ ̵w̵i̵n̵e̵ ̵o̵n̵ ̵t̵h̵e̵ ̵m̵e̵n̵u̵ good burgundy. You know, instead of just pushing the buttons and starting the machine at the same time I load the laundry. Technology has its privileges. (But really clean laundry isn’t one of them unless you bend technology to your will using your superior human cunning.)

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It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.

— Clive James

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In closing, one more thing. While I was typing this article, I had a load of laundry in the machine, which I hadn’t done since I downloaded the app. The smart washer just texted me:

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Washer has finished a cycle. Please unload the laundry.

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Who needs Paris?