Appliance Purgatory

Today, Sears visited us again, for a whopping $130, excuse me $129 but who’s freaking counting to tell us that our washing machine is dying. Oh and when they were here in January, the visit only cost $109, so they've jacked the price $20. Thanks Sears! Grrr. We “could” replace the parts, but it would almost as much as a new washer. And Mr. Blue Crew “I’ve been doing this since Moses” did nothing other than say if we didn’t have a family of four with two of us being young children who generate mountains of laundry, our appliance choice (front loader, not enormous sized) would have been appropriate, but he’s surprised it’s lasted this long.

Funny, the damned sales people didn’t tell us that when we bought it. Hmph.

Now, it’s not like this is a new machine, it’s about 5 years old and it’s been a workhorse. Lots of clothes, diapers, bedding, towels have found their cleanliness in its’ sudsy tub. It’s done well, but really, only 5 years? And that’s GOOD? What the heck?

And $129 bucks to tell me it’s dying. Really, that’s all he did other than turn on the rinse cycle for 3 minutes. RIP. OFF.

If it seems like I’m a bit overly sensitive, that’s because I am. It seems like we’ve had a lot of appliance angst lately, like our recent oven issue, and the lest we forget the microwave. But that’s not all, oh no! We had to replace our electric kettle recently because our old one didn’t turn off one night, and while thankfully it didn’t burn down the house, it boiled dry and then nearly melted. Yeah, scary. We replaced it with a stainless steel one that sounds like a freaking jet engine when it’s on. I was on the phone one day with my Mum and turned the kettle on, and she asked a train was going by. True story. Nice.

And we also recently bought a new toaster oven and coffee maker. Both Black and Decker and mounted under the counter. In the past these have been our favorites and expected no less this time. Well, they’re just over a year old and the toaster oven only cooks at one end and hope you like it SUPER toasty – as in burnt. B&D also took out a few of my favorite features from previous models – like the pull out crumb tray (they’ve got a drop down pan and guess where the crumbs go? Allll over the counter. Argh!) and the little hook thing on the door to pull out the rack so you don’t burn your hand getting your toast out. Why? Why did they remove these useful gadgets?

The coffee maker has leaked from day one, takes a while and the little rubber thing that allows the pause feature to work is already broken off the basket. Sucky. And it’s a pain to clean.

To say the least, I’m not thrilled to be budgeting to buy a new washer sometime in the next year … IF I’m lucky, apparently, it’ll probably be sooner than that. I’m told to just let it run until either the whole thing breaks or the noise gets to be so bad I can’t stand it. Apparently, they just dont' make them as good as they used to. And it's really, really true. However, I guess that's how they keep making $129/house call.