This had been the worst week in all the seven years that I have been married. On Monday I backed out of the driveway right into a parked car. Tuesday I lost my pocket book and before I had a chance to cancel my credit card, some body had made several purchases with it. My husband and I had quite the fight over the car and the credit card. We weren't exactly speaking to each other.

Thursday afternoon I was late picking up our son after school for his dentist appointment and in my haste I quickly tossed some dirty clothes in the washer along with some detergent and left. When I returned home I found that I had poured half the box of detergent into the washer by mistake and now the machine was broken. I cleaned up the mess and brought the clothes to a laundromat. I had no idea as to how to approach my husband for the money needed to repair the washer. I notified the appliance repair people and they agreed to stop by the following Tuesday and repair the washer.

Tuesday morning around 10:00 am, the two repairmen showed up. John, the tall man, was polite and some what business like. Jake, on the other had, was short and really fat. He smelled of cigars and kept leering at me and making whispered remarks to John. I could hear John tell him to keep his mind on work. As it turned out by over loading the washer with soap I had caused the motor to burn out. They replaced the motor around noon and were finished. The total bill for the motor plus labor came to $225 dollars. I went upstairs to get my check book. After searching for almost half an hour, I suddenly panicked when I remembered it was probally in my pocket book that I had lost the week before. Jake started shouting that I had to pay now and he wouldn't even consider coming back for a check tomorrow or have me mail them a check. Even John said it was company policy to be paid at the time of the repair was done. I sat on the basement steps and feeling like the world was collapsing around me, I started to cry. Jake kept calling me "dame" and demanding payment. Between my sobbing I tried to explain to the men about last week. Finally John said I should just call my husband and have him come home from work and pay them. I pleaded with them to let me owe them the money.