The Ghost in the Machine

I've got a mechanical gremlin who seems to have taken up residence. He's so far been relatively benign, but I'm worried. Two weeks ago, I was heading home in the bitter cold and my car just died on me going around a steep bend. It seemed like an electrical problem, as the car just died and locked up. I wound up in an almost-ditch. I just sat there for a minute and then I tried to turn on the car. It started up no problem. Also, since the ditch was frozen, I could just drive away. So I'm all hinky in the car, and I get it checked out, but there's no warning lights, no repeat of the problem, nothing. So we declare it a gremlin and so far I'm forgetting about it.

Fast forward to Sunday night. I'm doing the laundry, and I realize that even though I heard the tub fill up, I didn't hear the clothes whooshing around. So I open the lid, I smell some slight burning smell, and there's a slight hum, like a motor's trying to do something. I do eventually figure out that the clothes will drain AND spin out (so the motor's not dead), but won't agitate. I take my wet clothes down the hall to my neighbor, who very nicely agrees to let me finish them up there. Now, about three years ago, I had something like this happen, and the machine just started up again later and never went bad again. So about two hours later on Sunday, I try the washer again -- no agitation. Ditto on Monday, and I had called the repair dude. Fast forward to this morning, where I've taken time off work to wait for repair dude....and he comes and tests the machine, and it works. He tries to get it to break again, and nothing. It's all better. I pay for the service call, and he says that if it does it again in 30 days, it's considered a continuing problem so I won't have to pay if he needs to come back, but I'm betting he won't be coming back.

I'm afraid of where the gremlin goes next, but as long as whatever it gets into doesn't stay broken, I guess I'm okay with that. It's actually kind of a nice gremlin, the kind you want when something mechanical goes wrong -- "Maybe if I just ignore this problem it will get better on its own". We'll see.