Thank you all for your helpful words. I have been getting a bit better at ignoring these things this week, but today something happened that really scared me.
We have one of those newer front-load washing machines, and when it spins on high it makes a huuuge racket and shakes the whole house (like you can literally see the thing jumping up and down). It goes on several minutes, and you can feel the vibrations through the floor. In retrospect I should have left the house, because now I'm extremely nauseous.