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.
He reached into his jacket and a little black gun appeared in his paw. He
held it casually, the way you hold a candy bar or a cake of soap. Only this
gun wasn't going to make anyone clean.
-- Jonathan Lethem, "Gun, with Occasional Music"
This page was last modified on 2011 December 20.