It’s my Dr. Who washing machine. It looks smaller from the doorway than my old one did, narrower, somehow. It’s actually the same width and I’m not sure why it does; the angles and height on the control panel are different, maybe that’s it.

Not that you’d notice, though, because I always leave the lid up when it’s empty, both to air it out and to remind me when it isn’t.

The lid doesn’t lean over backwards for you when you open it. It’s almost straight up. I’m still a little afraid of it falling on my head but it’s doing just fine and you know they wouldn’t engineer that liability into it anyway.

You look in and that interior is HUGE. No, I mean it, it’s really big, with the tub right to the outer walls, unlike my old one; there is no space for your socks to go over the edge into that space in between and out into (and sometimes clogging) the drain hose.

(Stepping back to the doorway to appraise it again.) Bigger on the inside than the outside.

One of the complaints about the manual Speed Queens was that they looked like they used more water than most. Note that I can do twice the load of my old machine with things still sloshing easily as they should. Granted, that Whirlpool was on its last legs and I was keeping the loads small so it wouldn’t stall out on me for good the next time, but still. It all goes in, no crowding. There have been far fewer loads and it feels like I’m doing much less laundry, even though what I wash hasn’t changed a bit. I’m like the hamster that has figured out how to jump off the wheel as it speeds around, jumping back in when I want to with the wheel no longer being the boss.

And even with the extra towels in there they still dry in a third less time.

If my dryer conks out because it’s old and I’m giving it heavier loads–except that I’m probably not because there’s a lot less water weight after that washer gets done spinning–well, at least I know what brand I’ll replace it with.

And who I’ll buy it from. Good people.