Did you know that you are supposed to grease your Kitchenaid stand mixer's insides occasionally?
I did not, until I got The Tok. There I discovered a man called Mr. Mixer, who basically just works on Kitchenaid's and he sells all the shit to do this, and has videos on it that you can follow along. So, in my completely oblivious, overly optimistic way, I decided this afternoon to jump right in and do this because I was bored and had nothing else I wanted to do and I wasn't about to fold laundry because that goes against our attachment laundering practices (meaning my lazy ass pretends that the laundry WANTS to hang out in the baskets unfolded. I'm trying to reduce the trauma on the laundry caused by separating them and storing them in dark drawers and closets. Because if you did that to a child, CPS would be knocking on your door and talking to you about parenting, right?) I thought about live-tweeting it, but since Twitter is a mess either due to Elon's gross incompetence/arrogance, or his carefully orchestrated elimination of ways to get news to the masses (which theory I ascribe to in a day depends on how much tinfoil I have to fashion a hat), I decided against that. Then I remembered I have this blog, and that it is my duty to share my crazy with the world because it will make you feel better about your own. So here we go!
1:00 PM I get all my supplies ready. Some paper towels, a rag, the little kit that I purchased, a Phillips and flathead screw driver, a hammer. I am all pumped up and ready to GO! I take a sip of my water and turn on the video.
1:03 PM OK, I'm taking this bitch apart and I am stuck on this one pin. It. Will. Not. Pop. Out. I try hitting it. I put the mixer up against the steps to brace it as I beat on the punches with the rubber mallet that was included in the kit. It's not coming out, despite the ease with which Mr. Mixer popped his out.
1:45 PM I decide to go ahead and watch the video to see if he talks about ways to get this fucking pin out because it is still not moving. Very next part of the video, he talks about flipping it on it's side and using a hammer instead of the mallet. I try it and this works. Success!
2:00 PM I had been able to get the drip ring off successfully using the mallet and a flathead screw driver. It is disgustingly caked with baking debris on the inside. I decide to clean it. As I am wiping it with a paper towel, I manage to slice my pointer finger a bit because of course I am going to injure myself doing this. I grab a bandage from the bathroom and carry on.
2:30 PM I now am being told that I need a Robertson S1 square bit. What. The. Fuck. Mr. Mixer? This was NOT in the initial instructions. I go into Charles's toolbox and find one, still a little salty about this situation. I get the planetary off as well as the top off of the mixer. The grease is disgusting. It's supposed to be white. It is gray and a sickly yellow. I start to scrape this off using the little plastic putty knife included in the kit. I rapidly realize that the 4 paper towels I grabbed is not enough. In fact, I would end up using the equivalent of a half a roll of paper towels. So much grease. Just...so much.
This was *after* I scraped a lot of it off. It was like rubber.
2:45 PM Now Mr. Mixer wants me to remove the pin from the planetary shaft. He says, just pop it right out! I say, that motherfucker is NOT coming out easily. Having learned my lesson from the first pin's refusal to budge, I watched ahead a moment to see if it would come out easier with a trick he has. There was no trick. I spend the next 15 minutes fucking around with that thing.
3:00 PM Now I'm using my 10th paper towel to get the grease off of the pieces I have already removed. My bandage is completely falling off from the grease, so I have to break to wash my hands and get a new one. Upon returning, I am informed by the video that there is a third fucking pin to remove from the worm gear shaft. So not only do I have to figure out how to remove this fucking thing, I have to figure out how to keep this worm gear from turning (you know, the very thing it was designed to do...) so I can get the fucking pin out. Then he talks about another punch. A smaller one. THAT WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE KIT. WTF? Now, to be fair, in the beginning he did show two of those punches...but one of them was included with the kit and one was not. Da fuck? I go rummaging through the tools again in the hopes of coming up with something to get this fucking thing out as it was not budging. I came up with this random tool that I should probably know what it is called but I don't so my brothers are all gonna have their heads explode over this I am sure, and some old nails.
Seriously, WTF is this plaque-scraper looking thing called?
3:30 PM I get the pin out between the tool and the nails. I'm on my third bandage at this point, and eventually abandon them as they just keep getting saturated with grease. Now Mr. Mixer says to go in with more paper towels and clean up. This takes longer than your bank does to refund money owed to you. He also says to use some rubbing alcohol to help with cleaning up the grease. I forget that I have an open wound on my pointer finger, and attempt to take a towel soaked in rubbing alcohol and get into those grooves to get them cleaned. My soul immediately shrivels up and dies from the burning in my one finger.
3:35 PM I abandon cleaning the parts for a minute and return to the bottom of the machine. "Remove the hub gear", says Mr. Mixer. "It slides right out." Lies. It does not slide right out. I have to beat it out. Mr. Mixer must have hands like vice grips.
3:50 PM Back to cleaning the parts. So many paper towels. So many gear teeth to clean. So much burning from the rubbing alcohol. At this point, I'm just rolling with it like it's some sort of weird Kitchenaid Kink thing. He warns that there are sharp parts in the upper housing. I fucking already KNOW, Mr. Mixer. I've already cut myself.
4:15 I remember that I have a couple of parts that I need to add onto the mixer, a spring and what he is calling an Everdime. I quickly find the video telling how to install, and do so. This part goes smoothly so I get cocky.
4:30 I am now re-greasing everything with this bright white grease that looks like frosting. So. Much. Grease. So. Many. Towels. I get everything reassembled. I call Charles to help with the Everdime, as you essentially have to screw a screw into a rubber gasket, and we've already established that I do not have vice grip hands.
5:00 I am starting to put everything back together. It goes fairly smoothly, and I get it all set back up on my counter and turn it on. It works! I am woman, hear me roar!
5:01 I put all of my attachments and paddles into my glass bowl for the mixer, and start to push it back on my counter out of the way. The bowl is not locked, which causes the attachments to hit against the side of the glass bowl. It cracks evenly, and a large chunk starts to fall. Before my brain registers it, I am grabbing for the chunk. It slices my fingers. Three additional cuts. One, is bad enough for stitches.
This looks way more dramatic than it actually is. But notice the original injury, on the tip of the index finger, is not even bandaged In fact, I may have burned off my fingerprints with rubbing alcohol.
So moral of the story? This is just proof that laundry is the devil. If I was not trying to avoid it, I would not have injured myself and required medical attention. Also, 36 minutes of videos somehow turned into 4 hours and a small forest of trees in paper towels, so don't believe everything on the Internet and/or The Tok.
But I am woman. RAAAAWWWRRR!
