I received this gift horse about a week ago and after effusive thanks I settled down to do a first ceremonial load of wash… only to discover that one look into the horse’s mouth revealed a set of teeth, well, you decide. Take a quick look at the Kontrol-Panel below and come right back for the rest of the story.
Now tell me: is this what Das Future looks like? An array of Buttons and lights whose purpose is known only to the lucky millionth monkey who methodically (and randomly) tried all 965 million settings??
OK, I know what you’re thinking: ‘The Owner’s Manual’ duh!
Yes, of course, the first thing I did was locate and download that horrid document. In
german only. ‘Bauknecht’ is a german firm, the actual device is made in Slovakia, and ownership of the company is now in the hands of Whirlpool, not that that helps me much. The Manual says, as you might have guessed,’Don’t put infants in the drum, don’t chew on the power-cord, don’t wash aluminum clothes in Hydro-chloric acid’… stuff like that there. But not a word, not one solitary clue, as to the function of any of the hieroglyphics on the Dashboard. They do say ‘See Program-Table’ about five times, but said table existeth not.
And also is absent from the English translation, which I managed to procure, just to check my comprehension, after wasting an hour on the net (and skillful foot-work in order not to install the bundled Virus/Toolbar for Viagra Casinos.) Anyway, the English version added nothing new.
So far, the Truth, and nothing but..
I do love to tell tales though, and it’s tempting to claim that the Manual came with a Jingle: ‘Mein POS er hat zvolf buttonen’ (to the tune of ‘My hat it has three corners’) which I herein translate from the original German as:
‘My POS it has twelve buttons/
Twelve buttons has my POS/
But vat the stupid buttons-do/
I haven’t got a fuckin-clue’
So I did coax it into doing a test load of laundry: three pair of pants, two sweatshirts and a couple socks. Took three hours, blew through 12 gallons of precious drinkable water, and the clothes were sopping wet when it finished. Sorry, Bauknecht (‘Bow not thyself down to false appliances!‘ (my translation), I spent too much time in America, where you just throw the wash in the drum, turn to ‘Regular’ or ‘Wash-n-wear’ hit ‘Start’ and a half hour later you’re done. what’s so hard, even here in the third world, in copying simple success?
The language problem probably explains using symbols instead of words, but let’s look at the symbols, shall we? (Not to mention that the symbols are never explained in any language: for a real tour of Hell. try the Hebrew version of Das Manual… “The drum is not for miniature life-forms to be introduced”(!)
So bottom line, what is to be done? Well, trial and error has enabled me to ‘Rosetta-stone’ the hieroglyphics, and here is the deal. Refer now to the second photo, where the buttons are finally de-coded!
‘A’: You press this button as many times as you like, nothing happens. But probably, if you feel like it, the ‘400’ lights up after 400 presses. Who cares though?
‘B’ lights up if it’s raining, or the roof leaks, (I think)
‘C’ functions to alert the user that he left keys in his pants pockets. It then locks the door of the POS! for ten minutes while you do penance…
‘D’ is of course the cycle used for washing wrenches and other hand-tools. (This one was a cinch to decipher.
‘L’ is for washing lab-ware, retorts, graduated cylinders, condensers and the like. I think it has a slow spin-cycle, but I haven’t tried it.
‘F’ is, you guessed it, for washing feathers, feather-boas, Swiss hats with feathers, and possibly stuffed birds. What’ll they think of next?
Answer: “K’ !! As you can see, this cycle is for laundering all types of roadkill. From hapless pedestrians, their shirts (and bodies) flattened by hundreds of thoughtless motorists, down to the odd bloodied armadillo you need to clean up a bit before serving to your mother-in-law for her hopefully last birthday, Das Vaschung-Maschine seems to have covered all the bases. My only beef is the time it took to figure it out. Should have posted this the day it arrived, but I didn’t have a thing to wear.
(And I’ll be frightfully grateful for any additional advice/ JS
jxsolberg 
Ah, I just laughed my head right off! Luckily my washer, being American, has a clearly labelled “wash head before reattaching” button. Interestingly my washer is also owned by Whirlpool. Hm. I just can’t imagine how I would wash something using that selection of buttons. Is it a combination washer/dryer?? Because the dial on the right looks like something vaguely resembling a dryer dial, and the selection of buttons on the left look more washer-y. I’m sure that’s very helpful to you. I don’t know. You shouldn’t go by me. I still use a handheld, non-electric can opener. It drives my parents crazy.
I still use a handheld can opener as well. My big discovery, after decades of frustration, was that the one reliable way to avoid the opener skating fruitlessly over one or two spots in the lid that are determined to remain attached, is to turn it sideways and cut the top OFF instead of out. Leaves a dangerous sharp edge, but I live for danger.
I just push down really really hard. It usually works. Every holiday my parents talk about buying me an electric can opener before the next holiday. They forget, thank goodness. Another thing I don’t want: a fancy wine opener. Corkscrew plus lever action = perfectly adequate for all wine-opening jobs. I don’t need any kind of weird fancy gadgety corkscrews.
I posted this precisely to hear from someone sweet like you: On-topic-it’s a simple (?) washer. The buttons remind me of IKEA wordless glyphs Surely this can’t be the future we deserve, OBL dear. 30 yrs of schooling and now this??.
oh, how I love IKEA instruction manuals. LOVE them. Nothing gives a lift to my day like trying to assemble a piece of IKEA furniture. Just think…kids in college in only four or five years! Here I come, IKEA!!!!
Haha The killer photo is the ‘perplexed/ maniacal victim on the suggested phone-line to IKEA Central. As if he’s got an ice-cube’s chance in Hell to explain vhat ain’t happening for him. Yup, screw # 978-46-AFO, Dat’s da prob.
phone line to IKEA Central….hahahahahahaha! Indeed. I would NEVER call IKEA Central. I’d hire a genuine carpenter first.
Missed you like Krazy, OBL.// I have perhaps tventy kilos of leftover IKEA parts/
Here, their giant store vas torched in an insurance scam a year or so ago./ And i view my assembly efforts as a modern IQ test. Israelis usually just toss the instructions in their brash arrogance. Then call Yonatan- the-Messiah
I see an asterisk on the left side of the control, but no corresponding footnote. It’s as cryptic as an Ikea instruction sheet.
I suspect that the LEDs with numbers next to them are to set the self destruct level depending upon how much you’re willing to pay the repairman.
The icon at seven o’crock on the dial which might mean “you’re too old and too well educated to use this washer designed for illiterate 20-something Krauts”.
I like that distillation setting. Fill tub with beer, and whiskey comes out the drain hose. I needs me one o’ them.
Ah yes, the mind runs amuck pondering the options. My previous German Maschine vas no less dense and inscrutable; I just had, then, someone to crack the code. ‘K’-to ‘JY’- und then ‘AX’.
They also make a dishwasher called 4588. Its controls are much simpler.
very interesting, I did brush up against it in the net search, but vas too distraught to pay mind.
guess I’ll have to try it vith a load of dirty dishes, ha.
And I thought that the two remote control devices for my TV and cable, each with around two dozen buttons of different sizes, shapes, and colors, some of which have no apparent purpose, were confusing. I long for the days of the simple “on” and “off” buttons.
Did you try Googling a guide to washing machine hieroglyphics? Doesn’t Google have an online translation app? 🙂
I love these responses. Unfortunately, mine isn’t nearly as funny. All you need, my dear JS, is to get a woman into your house (use your usual tactics) and have her explain it to you. Most of it makes sense to me. If I had your skill with photoshop, I would make a legend for you by lifting the symbols. Unfortunately, I don’t. But I’ll try. The pictures that look like spirals of different tightness refer to spin speeds.The group below that is temperatures for “hand washables”. On the other side of the dial, are settings for different fabrics. The top drawing is cotton. I can’t tell you what the Erlenmyer flask is for, though. The feather might refer to anything actually stuffed with feathers, like pillows, comforters, coats; or it may mean delicates. The squashed shirt refers to “permapress”. Not quite sure what that means, but it warrants its own wash cycle. The row at the top might mean water levels or wash sizes. I’m not really too clear on that, or it might refer to whether you want to just wash or rinse or spin dry. The lock tells you that during a wash cycle, you can’t open the door. The wrench tells you that there is something wrong; please call the repairman. That’s all I got for now. Hope you figure it out soon. —El
Oy mein gott, der Solution. Und just venn I vas about to side-rant about ze spurious contention dat any voman vorth her veight in fabric-softener vould unnerstand, genetically…
Thanks from das heart, m’dear. Ima gonna refrigerator-magnet your comment for , one hopes, decades of referral.
Yes, my Rosetta-stone transcript vas obviously a bit stoned and even facetious. My over-arching Problem is to stay true, these days, to my mantra of refusing to use an appliance visout understanding vat die buttonen do. My Dad vould concur and be proud.
once again, gratitude und goosebumps, El. (All this minus a functional ‘g’ key.: I need to laboriously paste in every instance of that more-common-than-expected letter.
While I am truly glad to help, if help was truly needed, I get the feeling that you didn’t really need it. But, be it as it may, you’re welcome and, any time, old friend.
Au contraire, you seriously nailed dovn the majority of my ‘duh’s. Luckily, ve perhaps share a fond memory of days vhen radios, etc, had an on/off and a tuning knob .Hugs
It’s entirely maddening. An Icon ought to be clearly relate-able to the concept it symbolizes/short-cuts. By anyone. Yes there may indeed be a modern convention of appliance-art, and if so mea culpa. Ve here in the un-holy land are plagued to exception by the necessity to use language-free descriptors.
Ha, and all I vanted vas a pair of clean pants to vear…(Oh, and a ‘double-you key some day)
I’m fluent enough in German that the manual in Kraut-speak vas no problem, they just inexplicably omit any mention at all of the purpose of even one (of the many) Buttonen.
Thanks for your thoughts here. Perhaps do a post including pix of your remote, just to add gravitas to our mutual ‘discontent’..
You shall not read the manual, as that is a clear violation of the MAN CODE, which requires that you drink several beers and operate the thing intuitively, then go out and wrestle a bear. You knew that.
Besides, the pictograms on the gadget are entirely self-explanatory — gravy-boat, galaxy, UFO-attack, butt-cheeks, ET-go-home, pyrex-beaker, and severed-hand. Together they address all your everyday laundry activities.
Hahaha. My feelin’s exactly. seriously, it’s criminal to market a device vith petrolyphs less understandable than proto-sumerian.. and then include not a vord in the manual.
Your translations do help though, and thanks. i’m filling the POS vith severed hands as ve speak.
Actually, what you have is a Money-laundering device, no doubt mistakenly delivered to your house, with calibrated settings for the coin and paper currency of many of today’s hot ‘get away’ locales around the globe. The newer models, such as the one depicted, have a conversion feature. With a USB cord, connect the Bkaunecht “Shekelgrumer’ to a computer with internet capabilities, and the the money will be changed per the the latest exchange rate. Comes with 20 countries installed, and plates and stamps for an additional 76 countries around the globe are available
Aha, that explains everything. And I thought the USB plug vas for ‘Uber-Shmutzige Bett-stoffe. Stands to reason now that the booklet was mum about most of the functions. Thanks for your input, Mel
I remember a few years ago, recently divorced, trying to figure out how my washing machine worked. I managed to find a useful key online, purporting to be a guide to the care symbols ‘for men’. Ideal, I thought.
As I perused further, I realised that the key gave exactly the same interpretation for any care symbol:
“Machine wash. Dry any cycle.”
The rationale seemed to be Darwinian: any of your clothes which did not suit this simple regime, they would soon be eliminated from the jean pool.
I recommend just bunging the clothes in, pressing whatever buttons make the thing go round, and hoping for the best.
The Germans (still) hope to eventually control the world through sublimely subversive tactics such as these. I can see they handily infected your punctuation. It won’t work, however, since time machines with just one button will be invented by the Canadians.
At least it’s agitating.
I have gotten it to do the same thing twice so I stick with that ‘cycle’, appropriate or not.
But the big news is: So delighted to rediscover you! Feels like finding a lost sheep or sum such.You have, among a lot else,, a love of words their powers, and their many meanings. I’ll need to see what you are posting here . ♥/JS