Illicit Affairs of the Major Household Appliance...

So, I have reason to believe I might have been living with an appliance scandal right under my nose.

I think my tumble dryer might have been having an affair with my fridge.

I have reason for my assertation. You see, often, in the news, when an older person dies, leaving behind a spouse to whom they were married for many, many years, that the spouse passes away soon afterwards. The couple have been together so long and are such a part of each other that one cannot live without the other.

In my case, I wrote an obituary to my fridge on Monday because it passed away on Sunday.

Well, tonight, my tumble dryer passed away. It was a quick, painless death. I simply loaded in my wet clothes, hit the button, it tumbled for a moment and then...a death knoll sound rose up and it died, leaving behind only the final wheezes of life before it gave up completely.

I think it must have missed my fridge so much that it decided it could not go on without the loud, obnoxious buzz that used to pervade the kitchen and it, too, went to the Appliance Great Beyond.

I feel sorry for my washer. I always sort of think of the washer and dryer as a couple. They usually sit side by side. They work together to get the clothes clean and dried. They usually match.

In my case, both my washer and dryer were White Westinghouses. They don't make those anymore I'm told which made me look up the purchase date. They were both purchased in 1995.

My fridge was also a White Westinghouse. It, too, was purchased in 1995.

So, you can see why I have my suspicions about the infidelity of my appliances. Now, if it were my washer that died and the dryer immediately followed, it would make sense in a very sad, tragic way: They loved each other so much that they couldn't survive without being by each others' side. They were a pair, a couple united by laundry and togetherness.

I think the problem is that I saw a rerun of "Grey's Anatomy" lately where a woman would have a false heart attack every year on the same day. It turned out that it was the anniversary of her next-door neighbour's death and that they'd been secretely in love for years.

So, given the expiration of my fridge, followed by my washer...surely you can see that I might have a reason for my suspicions.

Or, perhaps, more likely, I'm just being silly. However, I find that when faced with yet another unforseen household expense in the same week as the last one, rather than have a meltdown and curl up in a fetal position, pumping my fists at the sky and yelling, "WHITE WESTINGHOUSE, YOU SUCK," I find that making up stories about applicance infidelity is a much more sane coping mechanism.

Well, ok, it's not sane. Not really. Even I recognize that. However, as a writer, creativity is sometimes the best way to avoid a complete and utter meltdown. As I said the other day in regards to my fridge, I know it's not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things: Tumble dryers, like fridges, can be replaced. They cost a fair amount but, well, it's doable.

It's just that, like with the fridge, I know all that and it still stinks.

So, I choose to make up stories about my appliances and their illicit activities. I find it both therapeutic and entertaining. Of course, it leaves me very sad for my washing machine because it will now have to sit next to a new, unmatched partner that is a Whirlpool.

Oh dear, I've just realized that my fridge is also a Whirlpool. By that token, does that mean history is going to repeat itself and my fridge and dryer will, once again, undertake a forbidden romance?

Then again, who's to say that washing machine didn't know about the affair and it was more of a menage a trois?

On second thoughts, scratch that...entertaining and disturbing implications of that menage a trois aside, that might mean my washing machine can't live without the fridge and dryer and commit seppuku.

I definitely do not want that. April isn't over yet and there's still time for another appliance death in this Month of Homeowner Doom.

I'm just glad my oven's a Kenmore and minds its own business. Still, perhaps I best not use it until the month is over...just in case.

You never know what goes on in the complicated tangles of appliance love.

Happy Thursday!

Money Lessons from Childhood

I’m very pleased to report that even though I should still be mourning the loss of my old refrigerator, I’m already in possession of a newer fancier one.

This seems rather cold (pun intended), I’m sure. After all, my prior fridge was a good fridge. It chilled things nicely and rarely accidentally froze anything. It was just a bit old. Also, after I had to unplug it because it wasn’t working and instead was making a rather scary death-knoll sound, it smelled. It smelled like stale…fridge. When the men from Lowes wheeled it away and replaced it with my new fridge, I wasn’t really sorry to see it go.

I’m much less harsh when it comes to living things, I promise. It’s just hard to be sad to see something go when something much shinier and newer and actually works is wheeled into its place.

I’m pleased with my new fridge. For all their failures with paint, Lowes have an excellent appliance service. I managed to get 25% off because I chose a rather high-demand fridge and the only one in the immediate radius of my Lowes was ‘damaged’. The ‘damage’ was a tiny dent in the side that would face the wall anyway. The nice Lowes’ man helped me with everything and, voila, I had a new fridge by noon the next day.

I’ll stop talking about my fridge in a minute, I promise. It’s just that a fridge is a large purchase. It’s a ‘grown up’ purchase. It reminds me that even though I should know it by now, I really am a grown up.

It’s interesting to think that my first purchase ever with my very own ‘pocket money’ (what we call an allowance in the UK) was a Woofit toy. It was when I was around age nine, I think. I didn’t think about saving my money. I saw the toy, realized I had enough money in my pocket and the toy was mine. Then when my mum reminded me that since I blew my entire pocket money for the week, I wouldn’t be able to buy any sweets or treats until I got my next pocket money, it sunk in: it’s better to save and spend when you really have to than spend for the sake of spending.

It was a valuable lesson and one I still remember. As the thought of not being able to get my penny sweets or my crisps for the week or splurging and buying a can of Coke sunk in, I realized that by buying the Woofit, I hadn’t spent wisely.

I have to thank my mum for that. I think that’s why, to this day, I’m a cautious spender. I only splurge when I know I can really afford it. I’m not one to go out and spend my money on one pair of shoes and have to eat canned food for a week. I’d rather buy a less expensive pair of shoes and have some money left over. Certainly, it means I’ll never be a trend-setter but I’m really not a trend-setter type, anyway.

I suppose my Woofit incident wasn’t really the first lesson I had with money. That came when I was either four or five. My older brother was old enough to go out and about with his friends and ride his bike places. He’d often come home with a bag of sweets and he regaled me with tales of ‘the petrol station’ where they had all kind of sweets, chewing gum and snacks galore. To a child with a sweet tooth, it sounded like heaven. It’s amazing that something as simple as a gas station can be a destination to a little kid but there you have it…it was.

So, one day, I happened to have a 5 pence piece which is about the same value in the UK as a nickel in the U.S. even though with the exchange rate, it’d come closer in value to a dime. I gave it to my brother to get me some sweets. I waited for ages for him to come home. When he did, I immediately said “where’re my sweets.” My older brother stopped and smiled. Then he reached into his mouth and pulled out the piece of chewing gum he’d been chomping on and said, “here they are.”

This is a true story and ironically, I remember it much more clearly than the things I did yesterday. It’s something I tease my brother about to this day. He, too, taught me a valuable lesson about money that day: Be careful who you trust with your money.

Oh, and I don’t think I took the chewing gum he offered me. I don’t remember that part. I’d like to think my sense of hygiene was prevalent then but I have a horrible feeling I might have taken it. Either way, let’s just pretend I didn’t.

I think those money lessons from both the used chewing gum and the Woofit have helped me in my life. It’s true that the things you learn when you’re young help define you as you grow older. I was fortunate enough to be blessed with a cautious mother. My dad is not so cautious. He tends to be more of the Woofit buying type. He’s not dangerous with money but he has a tendency to spend before he really thinks about it. It’s not all bad. My dad’s philosophy is that if you buy cheap, you get cheap. While I think there are some cases where this is a fallacy, I think in many cases, unfortunately, he’s right. It’s hard sometimes to shell out more for something when there’s a much less expensive version next to it but most of the time, there’s a reason why it is so expensive.

I like to think I’ve learned the best from both of my parents. While my mum hesitates and tends to buy the inexpensive version, I go online, research the purchase and figure out if it’s worth paying more. This came in useful with my recent lawnmower and fridge purchases. I could have got a lawnmower for less but I got the cheapest one I could find the last time and it ended up exploding. I could have got a simple, cheap fridge but my research taught me that if I did save money now, I’d be paying more for repairs later.

So, I ended up with a nice, solid fridge. It’s not top-of-the-line by any means but it’s fancier than my old fridge which had the rudimentary shelves in the door and two buckets for fruit and vegetables. My new fridge has a lot more space, a lot more compartments and drawers and, best yet, humidity controls for my vegetables. Given that I tend to centre my meals around my vegetables, this is going to be great for making them last longer. Also, the best thing is the freezer is on the bottom and is a slide out drawer. I never realized that something as simple as not having to stoop down to go into the fridge would make such a huge difference but it’s a treat to open the door and immediately see what’s in my vegetable drawers rather than having to crouch and open them up. Having the freezer below makes more sense because, well, you open the fridge WAY more than the freezer anyway, right?

The moral of the story is that while I still had to buy a fridge when I really didn’t need to be spending a lot on a new appliance is that it turned out happily-ever-after. I’m enamoured with my new fridge. My food is cold. I got a great deal.

It was a grown-up purchase, a far cry from the days of shopping for penny sweets and Woofits. I do miss those days where my toughest decision was would I have enough money for a hot dog AND a milkshake when I went out with my friends or should I save the money for something else instead. But there are days when being a grown-up has its advantages.

Like today when I go home , have a glass of chilled wine from my new fridge and reflect that another minor crisis has been averted.

That’s a nice feeling indeed.

Happy Wednesday!

Death of a Refridgerator

It’s official. My refrigerator and freezer passed away sometime between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. yesterday.

I’m not actually sure of the time of death but based on my rather limited CSI abilities, the fact that my food in the freezer was still cool but mostly defrosted leads me to think it had been out most of the day. Also, my fridge was still cool-ish when I got home from my parents around 7 p.m.

Either way, my fridge has hummed itself to wherever it is that fridges go when they die. It was a good fridge. It was prone to making rather odd noises at times. It buzzed very loudly most of the time. However, it kept things cold and did the job and I suppose you can’t really ask more of a fridge, can you?

Of course, while I mourn the loss of my fridge, most of the loss is born of inconvenience rather than a strong personal connection with the fridge itself. This is what happens when you move into a house and the fridge is already there. It’s useful and I was glad I had a fridge but it never felt like my fridge, per se. Also, when I moved in, it was still quite full of things the previous homeowner had left behind so I had a lot of cleaning to do. While this provided a bond of sorts with my fridge, it never felt new because it was full of half-eaten lunch meat and such when I first ‘met’ it.

I’m very lucky. I didn’t lose everything in my fridge and freezer. While I lost a lot of things, including a collection of homemade soups I’d put in the freezer, some things were salvageable. Also, I have a little chest freezer in the garage so what could be saved went in there. For the fridge’s part, I’m temporarily using my little wine fridge as a fridge-fridge. It doesn’t get super cold but it’s cold enough to keep my food safe and uncontaminated.

I’m trying to look on the bright side of all this which is a bit of a challenge because firstly, it’s Monday and I’m not fond of Mondays as my regular blog readers will know. Secondly, it’s a very, very wet Monday. The lake in my back garden has just become even lake-ier and when you walk on the grass even where there’s no puddles, there’s enough water that it seeps up over your shoes. Finally, this has been a rather cruddy month for me as a homeowner.

I tried to smile through the termites. After all, I caught them before the damage was severe and they could tell all their friends that my house was free for the eatin’. I tried to laugh at the lawnmower. After all the hot-metal-piston-thingy didn’t hit me in the head, my neighbour loaned me his mower and I was able to get a new mower with no trouble. I’m trying to smile about the fridge. On the plus side, I get a shiny new appliance out of the deal.

On the negative side, it’s adding up financially. Certainly, I’d probably want a new fridge eventually but there’s a big difference between wanting a new one and needing one. Nowadays, fridges are essential. I’m sure there are arguments against that statement but unless you’re Amish and don’t believe in electricity, it’s rather hard to live without a fridge. I’m not really sure how the Amish do it, honestly. It’s not that I even like my beverages that cold. It’s more that I like my food to be uncontaminated by bacteria and keeping it cold prevents that. Also, it’s a great money-saver for a single person- it’s hard to find single-serving portions of things and it’s usually more economical to buy a package of chicken and then split it in two or three before I freeze it.

Still, I’m fortunate that I changed jobs in October. If I’d been on my old salary without the beautiful benefit of a commission check once a month, I’d be completely and utterly panicked and stressed. Fortunately, I was raised to save rather than spend when I have a little extra cash (thanks, Mum!) and so the fridge won’t hurt as much as it would have if I was living paycheck to paycheck.

It still sucks though. I’m just saying that because it feels good to say it. It sucks. That’s all there is to it. I know it’s easily fixable and in the grand scheme of things, far worse things could happen but, well, I just want to say it. I spend much time trying not to whine and complain because friends and people I know always have it worse: sick parents, husbands, spouses….overworking, being stressed, etc. but sometimes, I just have to take five minutes and let myself feel a teeny bit sorry for myself that I have to buy a new fridge and a lawnmower and there are termite holes all over my windowsill.

I feel better already. Like I said before, my fridge situation is definitely not the end of the world. I’m not going to sit there and whine, “Why is my house against me?” when, really, it’s not. To quote “Phantom of the Opera” (the musical): “These things do ‘appen.”

Of course, just like my air conditioning woes last summer, the death of my ceiling fan and the broken kitchen sink, these things do seem to ‘appen all around the same time and I sort of wish they’d spread themselves out but, well, hopefully this will be the last ‘appening for a while.

If nothing else, April is almost over. I’m christening it “Anti-Homeowner Month.” Fingers crossed that May will be better.

At the very least, I’ll begin the month with a new fridge.

Rest in Peace fridge that belonged to the nice old lady who sold me my house. Thanks for keeping things cold and making a lot of noise while doing so. It was only when the silence of your hum was deafeningly loud that I realized I had lost you for good. May you enjoy your days of never having to cool anything again.

Happy Tuesday and thanks for reading (and letting me vent)!