The bargain

Since leaving Adelaide, I have spent not only time but plenty of money on washing our clothes.  Here in the caravan park, it's up to $20 a week extra on washing and that doesn't allow for extras like quilt covers, jackets, extra loads etc.  Steve and I decided that it might be worthwhile buying a cheap washing machine, especially after we worked out what it was going to cost us over the course of our stay here.
Steve had mentioned this to one of our neighbours who does regular trips down to Maroochydore to care for his grandchildren.  He mentioned to Steve the other day that there was an uncoming garage sale in Pacific Paradise which is near the airport and that a washing machine was up for grabs.  We decided to go and have a look, even though we believed that the machine wouldn't be there anymore because we didn't leave home until 10am.
We got down there, walked up the driveway and there it was.  I had already contemplated how we would have to leave a deposit and get extra cash because I expected to pay about $100, if the machine was appropriate.  I looked at the price -$25- with additional information "it goes all the way to the last cycle and then stops".  The machine was only 2 years old - a Samsung 7kg with Fuzzy Logic (whatever that is).  The young woman had two small children and a husband with no mechanical nouse and just decided to get a bigger machine.
Steve was like the lady on the Ikea commercial.......'start the car'.  He was so excited but our biggest question was how to get it back to Mapleton with no trailer.  After some quick measurements, we drove down to his training school (which was just down the road) where Steve asked if he could temporarily unload the back of the Nissan into their storage area while we took this washing machine back to Mapleton.  No problem, so we unloaded, loaded, unloaded and reloaded the Nissan within a few hours.  Actually it was embarrassing how much stuff came out of the back of that car.  A couple of the other students took a break from study to come out and watch Steve put all the necessities, possibilities, maybe's and unlikely's back in the rear cargo area.  In fact, one guy didn't think Steve was going to do it and was suitably impressed when he did.
Later that day back at camp, after a good cleanup, we ran vinegar through the washing machine to see where it stopped working.  It puzzled Steve for a while and he dug around underneath the machine and pulled out what he thought must have been a filter of some sort.  He asked me what I thought and it looked to me like a shoulder pad (but it was the wrong fashion era for that) or more likely a pushup bra insert.  Then he pulled out what looked like a piece of plastic hanger that a baby's socks hang on in the stores.  Both these items were stuck in the outlet hose and once removed, we had a working machine.  So now the annex rings with the gentle splashes of an agitating washing machine and the roar of a 747 (or should I say a jet turbine helicopter) when the spin cycle's on. It still has some hiccups but for $25, whose complaining.