A dark and ominous thunderhead had just rolled in when the call came in: dryer taking forever to dry clothes. I set down my 40-ounce bomber can of Colt Malt Liquor and sprinted for my trusty Fixite Do service van.

Just as I pulled into the customer’s driveway, the thunderstorm unleashed its fury, dumping rain and hail. I dodged 17 lightning bolts as I ran from my van to the house. The ground exploded everywhere the lightning struck, like a field of land mines. The thunder was so loud that it jarred loose three fillings in my teeth. But nothing could deter me from my mission– there was a broken dryer out there and the Samurai was on the job!

Once inside in the house and at the offending dryer, I proceeded to verify the complaint. The first thing I do in any slow-drying complaint is to eliminate a restricted vent as the source of the problem. So I pulled the vent off the back of the dryer and ran it. Using my calibrated palm, I felt the pressure at the dryer’s exhaust port– it was weak. So I knew I was dealing with an air restriction somewhere inside the dyer. To proceed, I needed to disassemble the dryer.

I removed the front panel of the dryer to inspect the blower chute and found that it was packed with lint!

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I dumped all the lint into a waste basket and set it against the wall, near an electrical outlet. Suddenly, the house was struck by lightning which surged through the outlet and arced out to the lint basket. When I looked over at the basket, I saw that IT WAS ALIVE! AHHHHH!

(click for larger view)