<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashadoestulsa/3904299264/" title="Hang Me Out to Dry by Tasha Does Tulsa, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2509/3904299264_8e495de902.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Hang Me Out to Dry" /></a></div><br />When my clothes dryer went to the big laundry room in the sky early this summer, my first reaction was to cry.<br /><br />Second, I turned on my computer and opened <a href="http://maytag.com">Maytag.com</a>. I'd just spent nearly five years with a dryer (circa 1968), and I soon found all the fancy features now available on this humble household appliance.<br /><br />In fact, clothes dryers didn't need to be humble at all. Some models come with that hip, brushed aluminum finish, for crying out loud. I wanted to plunder our kid's college savings account and put one of those bad boys in my living room. Why relegate it to the same place where I store my old paint cans, rakes and sundry combustibles? It would have been the prettiest thing I'd ever owned. I was ready to welcome it as a full-rights member of the family.<br /><br />Enter my ever-frugal, always-sensible husband.<br /><br />Read the rest of this story <a href="http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A28031">in Consumer Watchdog in this week's edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly</a>.