Held hostage

After a week of doing only two loads of necessary laundry, I woke up Monday ready to tackle all of the dirty clothes, towels, and other sundry dirty items in our home. I started with Miriam's, put the load in the washer, shut the door and poured some detergent into the drawer thing. Although unfinished and slightly frigid, the newly cleaned and organized basement is one of Miriam's favorite play areas, so we ended up by her little kitchen cooking all sorts of plastic delicacies. After a bit, I realized that I was hearing no washer noises. I checked to make sure I had started it, and the outprint box was flashing "F-22." I turned it off, went through the startup sequence again, and again "F-22." I decided to start from scratch and went to open the door hoping to reset the thing. The door was locked. And nothing I could do would open it. I unplugged the machine, I pushed restart, reset, I tried to start at the rinse cycle... nothing. I dug out the troubleshooting portion of the handbook. F-22 is a call-a-repairman code. Argh. So I called Sears where I hope we still have a warranty (we bought it in July) and felt like I was on hold for an exorbitant amount of time. So I went to the online repair scheduling schedule and the first time somebody could be here was Thursday. Okay, I thought, Miriam's favorite clothes and blankets might be locked in the washer, but she has others, this might be a good chance to see if any of her off-the-bench clothes should be moved up or gotten rid of... so I took it. Like I had another choice. I did gather up some things that I felt couldn't wait until Thursday and washed them at my friend Shauna's (thanks, Shauna). Then I set out to live life as normal until Thursday when, after the repairman came between 8 and 12, I planned to spend the day doing laundry. Yesterday, the day before washer-fixing-day, I was tidying up the office and picked up the printoff of the appointment. I glanced at it and was shocked to see that the appointment was for Thursday, January 22nd. Due to the lack of being able to capitalize numbers, I'll do it this way: the TWENTYSECOND! As in NEXT week! Not today, but NEXT WEEK! I was so sad! I can resolve most of my laundry woes by just giving in and doing some wash loads at the laundromat down the street. I have many happy memories of laundromat times in my college days, so although it would be a pain it wouldn't be that big of deal. Our dryer still works, so I'd only have to do the wash cycle and then come home. Not bad at all. But remember Miriam's clothes? Locked in the washer? Where I can't get to them? I'm just lucky that she hasn't asked for her soft blanket specifically this week. Or that I've not had an overwhelming desire to dress her in her/my favorite jeans or shirt or coat... I'll get through this, and trust me I know it's not a big deal but GOSH it's been a sliver in my side this week. You will notice in the picture that the F-22 code is thankfully no longer flashing. Now there's just the bright red light on "DOOR LOCKED" that seems to mock me every time I venture down to look at it. Even though it's been since Monday, it seems like a fresh wound because I had planned on it being fixed today. Oh well. If anybody knows how to clear an F-22 error code on a Kenmore HE-2 washer, please let me know. An entire load of Miriam's cutest clothing hostages and I would be ever so grateful!