I recently read an article from Real Simple that boasts of 12 simple, 15 minute household repairs that "won’t put a dent in your weekend".  But my question is, what about the repairs that do put a dent in your weekend?  Or the ones that put a dent in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, when you have to be at work or take the kids to school?  Where are all those quick fixes?

I’m not sure if there are any real quick fixes other than a steady dose of anti-depressants, but I do know how to spend two hours getting a whole pack of melted gum out of the inside of my dryer and I would like to share it with you.

I called everyone I could think of that might know what I could do because the site of smeared, melted gum, pasted all over the shiny, chrome, drum of my brand new dryer had me near tears.  I found a blog about cleaning out washing machines but nothing about dryers.  I finally had the bright idea to call the manufacturer in hopes that they would respond with no solution other than to replace it for free.  No such luck!  They did say, however,  not to use Goo Gone or lighter fluid or anything else that is petroleum based due to the fact that it could ignite a fire. Interesting! 

I was left with one alternative and I was dreading it…the trusted peanut butter trick.  It works in hair so why not on the inside of my dryer.  It is oil based so there should be no fire hazard.  I gave it a try.  Low and behold it worked perfectly.  Still, the job was tedious and time consuming…I think I mentioned I scrubbed for two hours, and then had to wipe it down and run a few test loads until my clothes did not smell pea nutty but all in all the shiny, silver, coating looks like new and my kids are not allowed to chew gum until they move out of the house!