The Year of the Appliance
Apparently the appliances in my home all got together last year and agreed that, one-by-one, they would conk out in 2013.
The first casualty was my dryer. This past January, my babysitter called and said the dryer wasn’t putting out any heat; I told her to call my handyman, Gabriel, and have him take a look. He checked it out, explained the problem and also explained that because the part needing repair is so expensive, I would be better off simply buying a new one. I trust Gabriel one hundred percent, so $500 later we had a new dryer.
And not the fancy, bubble-looking one that Henry wants, mostly because I can’t see spending all that money on something that sits on my basement, away from prying eyes, but rather a simple, workhorse of a machine that I’m hoping will last a bit longer than its predecessor.
Next up on the dead-appliances list was my air conditioner. This passing particularly annoyed me because it was so premature. I only bought the thing four years ago so come on, really??! This is how you’re going to do me? Add on the fact that it’s a bitch to install and now I’m super irked. The thing sits in a box carved out of my kitchen wall and requires a handyman and an assistant to install. So there I was, calling Gabriel again.
[By the way, if you're going to own an old house, with all its charm and quirks, trust when I say, you better have a Gabriel in your life. Otherwise, don't even bother.]
Third in line was the water heater. I didn’t even see this one coming. We’ve only owned the house since 2006, so I figured we had a couple of more years on the heater. Again, the babysitter calls, only this time to say she went into the basement to do the laundry and it’s flooded.
These are words no homeowner wants to hear, especially a weary one like myself.
She tells me the water is coming from the water heater and she will put a bowl underneath to catch the spill. I tell her to call Gabriel and then proceed to pack up and head home from the office to assess the damage. I’m hoping it’s an easy fix.
I am such a fool.
On my walk home, Gabriel calls to tell me I need a new water heater and his friend, a licensed plumber, can purchase and install it for me that night. “Sure thing,” I say as I tally up my out-of-pocket costs and cringe. I then spend the next three hours cleaning my flooded basement.
Which leads me to the clincher. At 5:30 this morning I was woken by an enormous crash in my house. I mean, this thing was so loud, I literally shot out of bed, thinking something had exploded downstairs. After rubbing the sleep from my eyes and gathering my bearings, I called downstairs to my stepdaughter, who was getting ready for work, and learned that the large, condiment-laden, absolutely-necessary, heavy French door had fallen off the fridge.
Wha? Huh?
Oh, no you didn’t.
Un-freaking-believable.
I walked downstairs and sure enough, there she was and there it was, sprawled on the floor, completely unattached from the rest of the fridge and in fact, cracked on the bottom, thus ensuring it could not be reattached, lest I try to get handy. At this point, suffering from a serious case of appliance-fatigue, I simply unloaded everything from the door, reloaded it somewhere else or tossed it in the trash, propped the door back on its hinge and bought a new fridge. It’s being delivered tomorrow.
2013 will be remembered as the year the appliances won.
Post-script:
For those of you wondering why Henry never messes with this stuff, it’s because these are the things that fall under that annoying phrase that goes something like this: You wanted an old house, you deal. And I can’t even say anything because he’s right: we had an ultra-modern, huge loft and I wanted the old house. So now, here I am. Me, my house and my freaking appliances.
“I like the way you die, boy.” – Django
