Larry, you sound like me with the washer/dryer. For years, I've tried to master laundry and have invariably ended up ruining many articles of clothing in the process.
After making a number of reasonable efforts, my wife finally said, "Why don't you just stick to the cooking? We all have our talents and obviously laundry is not one of yours."
When I was in college, I used to take my clothes and detergent with me into the shower, and thats how my clothes got washed. ( dried them on top of the heater in the room).
A few years ago, My wife turned on the washing machine, then left for the day. I was cooking, heard a noise coming from outside the kitchen, and figured it was the television in the other room. A few minutes later, something didn't just seem right, so I went out of the kitchen to see what it was, and noticed about 1 inch of water coming from the downstairs bathroom all over the hall way. I opened the bathroom door, and the toilet was gurgling and over flowering ( as a result of the septic tank being too full, and the washing machine trying to drain water to a full tank). I ran to the washing machine to turn it off, but there were like 100 buttons, dials and switches. It was like trying to fly an airplane without knowing how. I pressed and twisted a few things, with no results. finally, I just pulled out that huge plug on the wall and the machine ( and over flowing ) stopped.
The kicker is, it was on my birthday, and it was a Sunday during football season. So, trying to find someone to come and pump it out was a real treat.
In our picture album for that year, I have a picture of all of our birthdays and what we did. On mine, I have the picture of the cesspool truck sitting in front of our house.
I always say that was the most expensive birthday present I ever got. Just what I wanted to do on my birthday. Spend $2000 to have years of crap pumped out of my septic tank.
I guess this is the long way of me saying that my laundry skills are equally as poor, and the reason Im told to just stay in the kitchen.
Larry