September 23, 1999
Dear Everyone:
Don’t take this as
impulse shopping,
but the other day I went out on my lunch break and bought a washer, a
dryer and a refrigerator. I
also made the salesman’s day.
What’s wrong with the old washer, dryer and
refrigerator? Nothing.
Yet.
When I bought the condo in 1987, I was delighted
that it came fully equipped with laundry machines, the fridge, and a
built-in microwave. When I
sold the condo and bought the townhouse, naturally I took the appliances
with me, except, of course, for the microwave.
And, for the most part, these appliances have
served me well over the last twelve years.
Oh, sure, I accidentally overloaded the washer once, and had to
have a repairman come out and work on it; and the refrigerator blew the
fuse in the defroster unit.
But all in all, they’ve done a pretty good job.
They are also all over twelve years old.
I heard somewhere that the average life span for a refrigerator
is seven years. After that,
you’re living on borrowed time.
One by one, little things start to go wrong and have to be fixed.
On its own, each little problem is merely annoying, possibly
inconvenient. But added up
together, they can cost some real money.
As my grandfather used to say, “It gets to the point where
they’re ‘two bits-ing’ you to death.”
(For you kids out there, “two
bits” is an old
term for a quarter.)
I looked at the balance in my savings account and
decided that I can afford to replace these appliances
before they start to die on me.
Why not donate them to a worthy charity organization while they
still have some life left in them?
Not to mention, the worthy charity organization will haul the old
ones away and I won’t have to pay someone to get some worthless pieces
of junk out of my home.
Plus, I get to take the value of the donated appliances off on my
income taxes. A win-win
situation.
So, a few weeks ago, I contacted the
Salvation Army
and made an appointment for them to come out on October 5th
to take away the washer, dryer and refrigerator.
The reason for waiting so long is to give me time to eat all the
food that’s in the freezer.
I did take a lot of homemade
chicken ala
king packets and frozen spaghetti sauce up to “Jeannie’s” place and
put them in her freezer.
But, since her
microwave died, she can’t really heat anything up.
As for the food in the refrigerator, I can look at
a jar of pickles and ask myself, “How long has this been here?
Since I moved in almost two years ago?
Toss.” Honestly, I
can’t use up even a small jar of mayonnaise before the expiration date.
So I have until October 5 to consume, or throw out, what’s
currently in the fridge.
This week, I went to pick out the replacements.
When I bought the condo, it was
Hobson’s Choice,
meaning I had very little choice at all, accepting what the developer
had bought in bulk and installed in every unit.
This time, I got to choose what I wanted.
Specifically, I wanted a washer that would fit in the laundry
closet, large capacity, but able to do hand washing as well, relatively
quiet (I always have to turn the volume up on the TV when the washer is
going); and I wanted something that wouldn’t go banging its head against
the wall every time the load got a little unbalanced.
I found a lovely washer and a matching dryer.
Then a refrigerator that has adjustable shelving up one side and
down the other. And, because
I was buying three appliances at one time, I got a 5% discount on all
three, plus rebates on everything.
All to be delivered the day after the old ones go to their new
home.
As the salesman rang up the purchases, I started
looking at microwave ovens.
The oven I have is less than two years old, and works perfectly.
But “Jeannie” has been without a microwave for months now.
And she’s reluctant to invest any money on getting it fixed when
it may break down again in the future.
However, it took our complete lunch period
(“Elaine” came with me) just to pick out the major appliances and wait
for the salesman to go through all the reasons I should purchase the
dealer’s
extended warranty. (I
didn’t go for the warranty.
If it’s going to break, it will happen while the original warranty is
still in place. Besides, I’m
going to add the new appliances to my home warranty subscription.
If anything goes wrong, it only costs me $35 to get it fixed.)
So we went back to the office without looking at
microwaves any further.
“Elaine” did buy a set of DVD
disks about NASA.
So that was an impulse buy.
After considering how much money I could expect to
get back on the rebates, I went back to the store after work and my
happy salesman and I picked out a new microwave.
“Jeannie” can have the “old” one.
OK, that was an impulse buy, but “Jeannie” needs a microwave.
Otherwise she’ll never eat all the frozen food I dumped in her
freezer.
Love, as always,
Pete
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