ironing

 Steam irons are a great invention, but they are probably only really ideal in areas with soft water, water that has no lime in it. To save money the wife never uses distilled water in the iron, alway water from the tap.

Fill up the small tranparent plastic tank on the top of the iron. Insert the plug into the socket, put the iron down on the window ledge. It starts to make noises, gurgling and hissing. Lay out the shirt on the ironing board and pick the iron up. It violently produces a gout of steam and starts to spray scalding hot water.

This is not the way things should be. Attempt to adjust the machine, but this does not improve matters. Instead of steaming the clothing it soaks it. Clearly, the iron needs to be descaled.

Make up a solution of sulphamic acid, and pour it into the iron. Use the clearing tab on the side of the iron to let the acidic solution percolate through the iron. Then leave it for half an hour. Then plug it in again, holding it over the sink. The iron hisses like fury and blows out large clouds of steam. The whole working surface of the iron is covered in yellowish lime depostts, which dry into the metal surface immediately. Use a cleaning agent to scour these away, and wait until the remainder of the sulphonic acid has passed through the iron.

Take the water container from the air dryer and use this to fill the iron. There should be no lime in it, it originates condensate of water vapour in the bathroom.

Let some through the iron to rinse the remainder of the acid out of the iron's insides, and then go back to ironing the shirts. The iron works now, and the erratic behaviour has quietened down considerably.

Reach for another shirt, and allow the elbow to touch the iron which is resting on its end on the ironing board.

Now there is a burn on the skin on the side of the elbow, a painful burn.

This is the revenge of the clothes iron.