"Tie me kangaroo (washer) down, sport"

On Thursday afternoon I drove to McMinnville, Tennessee, a picturesque little middle-Tennessee town, which is located about 40 miles from Sewanee to purchase a new washing machine for our Irish cottage. Our "magic box" had given up the ghost and I needed to get us a more reliable machine than the one we were using (I called it the magic box because it didn't have an agitator and I was NEVER able to quite figure out how it washed the clothes... if I opened the lid while it was washing and tried to peek in to see what was going on, the machine INSTANTLY stopped?).
Back to my story... I ended up buying an almost new Kenmore repo for $300 less than retail... it WAS a beautiful machine with ALL the bells & whistles ("WAS" being the operative word). Before I got to McMinnville I stopped by my friend Tink Driver's salvage yard on "Possum Paw Road" and bought two 4' X 8' sheets of 3/4" plywood which wouldn't allow me to close the tailgate of the truck (before retirement Tink had been a VP for Reader's Digest... interesting guy... I'll write about his "dirt overcoat" and 15 Corvettes some other time).
We loaded the machine onto the plywood and pushed it tight against the cab/back window. They suggested that I tie it down but "Mr Know-it-all" declined, thinking it would ride safely right there. Twenty-five minutes later while speeding down I-24 at 75 miles per hour in HEAVY interstate traffic, I looked in my rear view mirror and watched the washer shoot out the back of the truck into an oncoming $50,000 Infinity automobile followed closely by a cavalcade of 18 wheelers also going 75 MPH (why couldn't it have been a $200 1962 Ford Fairlane?). I watched in horror as the machine slid down the pavement at 75 MPH with sparks shooting out in every direction. The good Lord had his hand on me because the Infinity was able to stop on a dime and actually pushed the washer off the road onto the shoulder like a bull dozier. The big trucks changed lanes without slowing down and what could have been a catastrophe was averted! PTL!
I checked with the lady in the Infinity to see if she was alright... she was and drove off looking a little annoyed. I spent the next 20 minutes picking up broken pieces on both sides of the east bound Interstate.
Baxter, my Cedar-Crest-Velvet-Earred-Nucklehead, was with me and he would have helped me lift the washer into the back of the truck if he had had thumbs. I was able to get it back on by myself (adrenalin I guess?)... and tie it down this time.
Looking for a silver lining to my Thursday afternoon cloud, I realized that I had developed and perfected a new way to sand down the front of any kitchen appliance in preparation for repainting. Just get a friend to push the subject appliance out the back of the truck at 75 MPH.
Actually the story has a relatively happy ending. I took the washer back to McMinnville Friday and the appliance guy fixed the machine for free and tested it while I waited (I offered to pay him but he was having too much fun making jokes about my misfortune). I thought I'd contact Whirlpool (Kenmore) to see if they'd like to buy my story as a testimony to the durability of their appliances. Here's the washer after I repainted it: