My husband gave our new washing machine to his mother. But I wasn’t the one who ended up washing clothes by hand.
“The movers will be here in half an hour,” my husband Vadim blurted out, hiding his eyes and nervously fiddling with the car keys. “Marina, just don’t start, okay?”
I froze with the laundry basket in my hands. Inside it, my husband’s shirts were resting peacefully, waiting to meet our brand-new silver washing machine, which we had bought only three days earlier.
“What movers, Vadik?” I asked calmly, although inside me a very familiar cocktail of confusion and rage had already started boiling.
“Well… for the washing machine. I promised Mom. You know her old one is in terrible condition. It spins only every other time. And we have two salaries, we’ll save up for another one. But it’s hard for Mom. She doesn’t need much, just to be treated decently.”
I slowly placed the basket on the floor.
My new washing machine. My beauty with direct drive, a silent motor, and a steam-cleaning function. I had saved up for it for six months from my vacation pay and bonuses, because our old washing machine didn’t just spin poorly — it performed exorcisms on the laundry and jumped around the bathroom like a wounded tractor, threatening to break through the wall into the neighbors’ apartment.
And now, when a quiet, clean era had finally arrived in our home, Nina Pavlovna had decided that “being treated decently” meant taking away our comfort for herself.
Nina Pavlovna, my mother-in-law, had an amazing talent in general. She considered herself an expert in every field of the universe, from geopolitics to stain removal.
Just last week, we had the pleasure of discussing laundry.
“All these modern detergents of yours are pure poison!” she declared, sitting in our kitchen and stirring her tea with a superior look. “A real housewife washes with laundry soap and mustard. Mustard cleanses the aura of the fabric! And your chemicals only destroy immunity.”
“Nina Pavlovna,” I replied peacefully but firmly, “mustard does not break down organic stains. That’s why enzymes are added to detergent — protein-based enzymes. And they work strictly at forty degrees. In boiling water, they curdle. And your soap, in hard water, simply forms calcium deposits on the heating element. That’s why your old machine died. The heating element burned out from limescale.”
My mother-in-law turned crimson, like an overripe tomato.
“Oh, look at you, the chemist! I’ve lived a whole life, and you think you can teach me, a woman with experience? You ungrateful rude girl!”
She slammed the door with such drama, as if she were closing the gates of Heaven in the faces of sinners.
And now this opponent of modern technology was taking my new, electronics-packed washing machine.
“All right, Vadik,” I leaned against the doorframe and crossed my arms over my chest. “Movers it is. Mother is sacred.”
Vadim exhaled with relief. He had clearly been preparing himself for hysterics, a scandal, broken plates. He didn’t know that a teacher with twenty years of experience does not scream. She gives a failing grade in the register and calls in the parents. In this case, life itself.
“Thank you, Marina, I knew you would understand!” he fussed. “I’ll bring Mom’s old machine here for now…”
“No need,” I cut him off. “It’ll only take up space. Take it to the scrap yard.”
“But what are we going to wash clothes in?”
“What do you mean, what in?” I smiled sweetly. “By hand, darling. But there is one little detail. I work one and a half teaching shifts at school and check notebooks until midnight. I bought the machine to free myself from domestic slavery. You dealt with my solution to the problem by giving it to your mother. So now the problem of dirty laundry is yours.”
“Oh, come on!” Vadim laughed, already opening the door for the movers. “I’ll wash it. Big deal! Our grandmothers washed clothes in ice holes, and they were fine. I’ll manage!”
That was his fatal mistake.
For the first three days, Vadim enjoyed the status of “a good son.” Nina Pavlovna called every evening and bragged to the neighbors about what a golden boy she had raised. Meanwhile, the basket in our bathroom silently and inevitably filled up.
On Saturday morning, Vadim came into the kitchen stretching, expecting breakfast. There was fried egg waiting for him on the table. Next to it stood a blue plastic basin, a piece of tar soap, and a packet of baking soda.
“What is this?” my husband tensed.
“Your equipment,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. “Your work shirts, your tracksuit after the gym, and our bed linen. A double duvet cover, Vadik. It’s waiting for your strong hands. You promised.”
Vadim snorted, took the basin, and disappeared into the bathroom. The sound of running water was encouraging.
The psychological thriller began forty minutes later.
I was sitting in an armchair with my tablet when heavy, uneven breathing came from the bathroom. I looked through the half-open door.
Vadim, red as a boiled lobster, was standing over the bathtub in clouds of steam. The soaked duvet cover made of thick calico weighed about ten kilograms. It twisted, slipped out of his hands, and refused to be wrung out. Murky water streamed from it. My husband’s knuckles had already turned white.
“What’s wrong? Grandmother’s experience not helping?” I asked sympathetically. “First twist it into a rope, then wring it out. And don’t forget to rinse it in three changes of water, otherwise the detergent will stay in the fabric and you’ll itch.”
“I… right now…” Vadim puffed, trying to throw the wet fabric monster over the edge of the bathtub.
By Saturday evening, my husband could not straighten his back. The skin on his hands had wrinkled and reddened. Laundry hung all over the apartment and dripped onto newspapers spread underneath, creating the atmosphere of a 1930s communal apartment.
Vadim sat on the sofa and stared at the wall with the empty gaze of a man who had learned the futility of existence.
At that moment, his phone rang. The screen showed: “Mommy.” Vadim, wincing from the pain in his rubbed-raw fingers, put it on speaker.
“Vadik!” Nina Pavlovna’s outraged voice burst from the speaker. “This new piece of junk of yours ruined everything! It’s beeping, flashing red, and locked the door! I put my down jacket in there, Grandpa’s coat, and two wool blankets, and the cursed thing gives an error and won’t spin!”
I came closer and leaned toward the microphone.
“Nina Pavlovna,” I said in my gentlest teacher’s voice. “Modern machines have a weight sensor. A down jacket, once it absorbs water, weighs around fifteen kilograms, plus the blankets. And the drum limit is seven kilograms. You’re about to rip off the shock absorbers and knock the drum off its axis. You need to take half of it out.”
“Don’t try to confuse me with your sensors!” my mother-in-law shrieked. “You gave me a defective machine just to get rid of your mother! Dumped some useless junk on me, you so-called benefactors! I’ll call a repairman, let him write a report. I’ll sue your store for emotional distress!”
She raged so loudly and with such selfless dedication, as if she were speaking from an armored car before a trade union of deceived mothers-in-law.
Vadim slowly moved his gaze from his hands, rubbed red and raw, to the phone. Then he looked at the dripping duvet cover hanging from the drying rack — the one he had spent half an hour wringing out. Something clicked in his eyes. The mechanism of blind filial obedience malfunctioned and fell apart into gears.
“Mom,” Vadim said quietly, but with steel in his voice.
My mother-in-law fell silent on the other end of the line.
“No repairman. Tomorrow morning, I’m coming with movers and taking the washing machine back.”
“What do you mean, taking it back?! What am I supposed to wash clothes in?!”
“In a basin, Mom. With mustard. The aura will be unbelievable.”
He ended the call and threw the phone onto the sofa. Silence hung in the apartment, broken only by the steady sound of falling drops.
“So, movers tomorrow morning?” I clarified, returning to checking my notebooks.
“At nine sharp,” my husband replied firmly, rubbing his lower back.
The next day, the silver beauty returned to its rightful place in our bathroom. Vadim connected the hoses with such tenderness and reverence, as if he were assembling a heart-lung machine. Nina Pavlovna was mortally offended and didn’t call us for more than a month.
I did not lecture him or say, “I told you so.” I simply loaded my husband’s new shirts into the machine, added a capsule with enzymes, selected the “forty degrees” mode, and pressed “Start.” The machine quietly hummed as it began drawing water.
Justice had triumphed — without shouting, without scandals. Solely through the power of gravity, wet calico, and relentless logic.
And ever since then, before saying to his mother, “Of course, take it,” Vadim always instinctively rubs his hands, remembering the weight of a wet duvet cover.
