It's Overloading the Machine as in, the washing machine, primarily. The name comes from the laundromat next door. They have very large signs on each machine which say, in all-caps, "DO NOT OVERLOAD THE MACHINE". All in all, there are at least twenty of these signs posted.
Both at the laundromat and at home, I regularly overload the machine, leading to unpredictable results.
What's more, there was rain in my collar and I needed a sandwich. The clouds
were still bunched up in the sky like a gang on a street corner, and it looked
to me like they had the sun pretty effectively intimidated.
-- Jonathan Lethem, "Gun, with Occasional Music"
This page was last modified on 2011 December 20.