Dryer Woes

Back in November I begged for help. You see, I had gone through 2 rolls of packing tape trying to keep my dryer door shut so that my clothes would dry. Many of you gave me some repairman recommendations (ultimately we decided not to repair it since both it and the washer were on their last leg), two of you let me use your dryers, and then my great neighbor recommended duct tape and let me "borrow" her roll, which I COMPLETELY used up. It was a huge roll.

You might wonder how it is I used up 2 rolls of packing tape, Rindee's gigantic roll of duct tape, and almost another regular sized roll of tape. Well, it is because my dryer looked like this:
. Taping this baby was no easy matter. Just one piece along the top wouldn't work. Two pieces along the top wouldn't work...even 3. It usually took about 6 pieces to get the puppy to stay closed for the 45 minute cycle.

At one point my husband suggested that if I used a block we might have more success keeping the tape sticking. I tried this out, trying to figure out how to make this suggestion work. It improved the situation slightly
,but I was still taping like crazy.

A couple of weeks ago, consequently the same week I noticed my first gray hairs, I uncharacteristically got upset at the world. It happened after I tried to have a phone conversation with my friend. As usual the connection was poor and she couldn't hear me. Gabe was in the room and saw me slam down the phone and heard me say something like, "I hate this crappy phone and I hate the crappy dryer." My dear husband, suggested I use my cell phone to solve the phone issue and then took a look at the dryer. He came up with this idea:
. His idea used the block he mentioned a couple months before and about 1/6th of the tape. It was actually quite successful.

Well, a true pioneer would have continued to tape the dryer (Gabe's way). However, a new challenge presented itself. Recently it has been taking 2 drying cycles to get the clothes dry. I also still couldn't leave the house while the dryer was going for fear that the door would pop open, the heating element (the same one that couldn't dry my clothes, but could sure heat the outside of the machine) would somehow burn my house down.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm not a true pioneer, but I am the proud owner of a new washer and dryer. Happy Birthday to me.