Another Day in the Country
Current conversations
© Another Day in the Country
Last week I was writing about “choosing change,” and this week I’m fussing about it, again.
My sister’s washing machine just suddenly refused to fill with water. No amount of jiggling and wiggling, trying different settings, or checking on hoses would change the situation, so Jess asked our town “go-to” man for all kinds of mechanical things what he thought of the situation.
“I dunno,” he shook his head, mentally calculating his response. “By the time you get someone out here to look at it, and they figure out what is wrong and order the parts and get back to you, you are going to be halfway to a brand-new washing machine.”
Jess pondered this for several weeks, washing clothes at my house, where my mother’s 20+-year-old Maytag resides. And then she finally bit the bullet.
“I guess I’m going to have to get a new machine,” she said, checking her bank balance and wincing.
We knew how much new washing machines cost these days.
A couple more weeks went by before she resigned herself to the circumstances.
“I want the simplest machine,” she told a salesman at a hardware store, “with the fewest bells and whistles.”
More pondering. This was a difficult decision. Finally, she dragged her feet for 34 miles again and bought the machine.
The hardware store has great service, and within days her old machine was gone, and a brand-new, shiny instrument for washing clothes sat there in its place.
Jess turned on the machine by pressing a button, added her clothes and soap, and closed the lid.
She heard water coming into the tub, but not for long; clothes bumping against each other, but no sloshing. She opened the lid, and everything stopped.
There was not enough water in the tub to even wet all the clothes properly, let alone have the luxury of sloshing around in enough liquid to get them clean.
Back she went to reading the directions.
This new-fangled machine evidently was a water saver by design, and it did a very inferior job of actually washing clothes.
Research was called for.
I talked to my “buddy” at ChatGPT and said, “Lots of people are dissatisfied with new washers like yours. What about a different brand?”
“They are all automatic like that,” was the response.
“If I’d have known,” my sister fumed, “I would have kept my old machine forever and just have it repaired.”
Friday evening, we went to a spring music program at Centre, and guess what the topic of conversation was between our row and the row ahead of us while we waited for the program to start? Washing machine frustration!
Our cousin said that she tricks her washing machine. She fills it twice by turning the machine off and on again.
Jess admitted she also was trying to trick her new machine.
“I tell my machine I’m washing bedding — and then I just put in a smaller load of regular clothes, and that seems to work.”
At least that was easier than filling the machine tub with a bucket from the sink.
Meanwhile, this rather expensive gadget sits in place, posing as a useful tool.
What is the world coming to when we have to trick all the automatic gadgets that are foisted upon us?
I sometimes long for the days when things were simpler. Then again, I don’t want to go back to washing clothes in a Maytag wringer model, either.
I ordered a magazine called Real Simple, which I’ve subscribed to off and on through the years since its inception. I’ll take it for a year or so and then let it go.
“They are talking about things in that magazine that I already know,” I mutter.
Then again, in 80 years of living, it’s natural to have learned a thing or two, and there are several generations of readers who don’t have a grandma, like me, to clue them in, hence the need for this magazine.
When my first issue came, I was reading a section in which readers could write in with their social etiquette concerns.
My ears perked up. I read on as someone inquired about keeping bottled water in the refrigerator for guests who come to visit. It seems to be bad manners to offer tap water, which has different tastes, to visitors.
“Oh,” I thought, “I’m covered because I have a filter on my fridge’s water dispenser.”
But the magazine suggested keeping bottled water in the fridge for guests as the appropriate answer — not in plastic but in glass bottles.
“How highfalutin can you be?” I exclaimed, grateful that I was spending my days in the country, where a friend might come by, see me out in the yard, stop for a bit, and if they are thirsty, drink straight out of the hose without even wincing.