This morning, I woke up in a spin— the kind that propels you out of bed like your life depends on it. Before I knew it, I was in the kitchen, flipping the switch on my washing machine like it was the start of a NASA launch sequence.

It was a Sunday morning. Rain was serenading my shutters, and the only justifiable reason to leave my cozy cocoon of a bed was for my one true love: caffeine. But there I was, wide awake, haunted by a dream—or maybe a nightmare. A warning message, demanding my attention, glared at me in my subconscious: “YOUR PRADA KNICKERS IN WASH CYCLE, CONTINUE?”

Excuse me? My washing machine apparently has delusions of grandeur. It can now detect Prada and issue sartorial ultimatums? What next, it sends me a text if my Dior’s are in the dryer?

Except, I don’t own Prada knickers. Do Prada even make knickers?

Eventually, over coffee—and the soothing sound of rain—I pieced it all together. My ongoing battle with the Electrolux Washer/Dryer settings had invaded my subconscious. It’s a war I’ve been losing spectacularly. My cleaner, a domestic goddess in her own right, has effortlessly washed and dried my sheets in the very same machine. Meanwhile, I’ve washed the same load of clothes three times, each time praying that the washer might miraculously understand it’s supposed to switch to drying mode. Spoiler: It did not.

The manual, naturally, is written entirely in French. Not helpful. YouTube, my usual knight in shining armor, turned out to be less helpful. The last option is to ask the cleaner, but that would require stringing together a coherent sentence in French and somehow decoding her response.

For now, I’ll keep washing on the “Propre et Sec” setting, hoping for divine intervention—or at least a machine with the decency to tell me when my actual lingerie is in jeopardy. No Prada required.