D requested that I begin using liquid fabric softener. After discovering that my washer (inherited about 3 years ago) has a liquid fabric softener dispenser, I went about trying to figure out how it works. Long story short, it had to be cleaned. Since I had no idea that my washer had such a thing, it has never been cleaned. We average about 6 loads of laundry each week. Multiply that by the number of weeks I've been washing without cleaning the dispenser, and perhaps you may get some sense of the nasty grossness I found when I pulled it out of its little housing.

There was a layer of slime, created by years of laundry detergent residue that's never been wiped away. On top of that was a thin layer, almost like icing, of little spots of mold. Mmmmm. Hard to imagine that our clothes were actually getting clean in a machine that had such yuck inside it.

To say I'm a little embarrassed is an understatement.