Our Appliance Graveyard

We've had guests for the last couple of weeks -   old family friends who popped down from Zimbabwe for a visit.  During their fortnight-long stay I learned that there's quite a few habits we’ve developed living here in Sedgefield that might seem somewhat strange to the average outsider.
In fact the more I think about it, the more I realize that our home has become, over the years, its own micro eco-system in which we have all evolved into doing things somewhat differently …. 

For example, one of the deep and meaningful questions asked by our guests was
“When are you planning to take the washing off the line?”

At first this struck me as an exceptionally queer query.  Of course the answer is an obvious, resounding:- “When it's dry”,  but then I realized that they were only asking because said washing had been on the line since their arrival, and they'd already been staying with us for nine days (actually, if the truth be told, it had been hanging there a week prior as well, but I wasn't going to admit that).
  Now I understand that wet washing is not the most exciting topic, in fact it’s probably more yawn-inducing than a politician’s promise, but bear with me, I feel a need in my very core to explain our heartfelt dilemma.  

You see, when we leave for work the washing on the line is understandably wet.  In fact at this time of the year it's more likely frozen. You can't blame it.  If I was in its place I'd be more than a bit miffed about being left on the line all night  -  and call me a wet blanket if you wish but the last thing I'd be doing in the first hour after sunrise is concentrating on being dry. 

Of course during the day the wind blows nicely, the sun shines and, at approximately three minutes past something around earlyish afternoon, Whoop Whoop! Our washing is dry!  But of course both Mrs Ed and I are at work.  We don't get to witness this seven minute spectacle, though we have oft heard people talking of it. By the time we get home the dew has descended and the washing is damp. Again.

Our wet washing record (you can check with Guinness) is six weeks, three days and 18 hours.... I’m thinking of writing a country and western song about it.

“Why don't you use your tumble dryer?” Is the next question our guests asked (I'm surprised they were still awake actually). Which led to the next realization.  Yes we do have appliances - probably as many as most people do in this town…. But do they work?  No, not all of them.  In fact most of them don't. .  But they will one day.  We think.

You see fixing appliances costs money.  It does.  And if you are trying to make a living in Sedgefield, chances are you won't have the money at hand, so you hang on, with the appliance remaining in its favoured position, until
a) a lotto win
b) a municipal 'Appliance Fixing Subsidy' is initiated,
c) a tax rebate
d) a long lost wealthy uncle sends a cheque

Being a particularly creative family, whilst our appliances are hanging about either dormant, or, as is the case with our one sided, timer-challenged toaster, on 'light duties', we waste no time in finding new uses for them.  Or more to the point, we put stuff on them… or in them.
And the more comfortable we get with their new-found duties, the less likely we are to fix or replace the appliance. Let's face it, even if money miraculously appears, the toss up between going out for a slap up meal with real meat and  'getting someone in to replace the magnet strips on the fridge door' is pretty much a no-brainer.

So, we have a lovely dish-washer which has become a dish-watcher:-  Particularly useful for storing crockery that we keep for special occasions (when our children are not within a 5km radius).   We also have a dormant tumbledryer in which we hide our day to day shoes…. so the dog can't steal them to bury in the garden.  Oh, and there's the white box in the kitchen which we like to call our Mic-no-ways oven - it’s the perfect thing to put a pot plant on top and we get to store spices, oxo cubes etc inside.
 
Some appliances are purely decorative and we just keep them around because, well, they’re like old friends... and we get to have a joke at their expense... like our seized borehole 'pimp' (it's going to need quite a bit of money  before it provides service of any sort).

But before you start thinking that our home is a veritable graveyard of appliances, I must add that though it's missing four out of five knobs, our stove works fine…. as long as Mrs Ed stays away from it.  And our home computer boots up very efficiently, we hear,  …. except the screen… doesn't.
 
The strange thing is that we just get used to these non-functioning devices.  As one by one they give up performing, we somehow learn to carry on without them, or at least make a plan so that we don't have to pay to fix them.

Our car radio is a prime example.

  One day, during our guests' stay, we decided to go along to watch a movie at the mall.  To save fuel we all clambered into the 'Edgemobile' which, as discovered by my son last December, can snugly accommodate 27 people and their surfboards and a banana each.

During a most surprising lull in conversation, visitor Darryn, who was in front, precariously perched on the patched up passenger seat, innocently leant forward and pushed the 'On' button on the  radio.  Of course nothing but crackling and hissing resulted:- how was he to know that our car sound system had some sort of short in the wiring ?

I decided to explain the drill. “Just wind down your window  exactly two and a half turns - you can use the vice grips under the seat.”  Meanwhile, in the rearview mirror I winked at my daughter and Mrs Ed who were each sat on the outer side of the back seat.  In conditioned reflex they grabbed their respective door handles and pulled (right door) or pushed (left door), - after all it was second nature to them.  For my part I took my right hand off the steering wheel and wedged my finger into the gap under the speaker cover on the door panel next to my knee (there's a clothes peg already there which makes it easier to get your finger in). 
With this combined initiative the wiring somewhere in the depths of the car all fell into place, the crackling and hissing stopped and the trusty old radio proudly spewed forth music. 

Of course it did, it works perfectly well, thank you!.

But somehow our guests were quite bemused by all this. 
“Why don't you just get it fixed?” one stammered a few minutes later, watching in white-knuckled disbelief as I steadied the steering wheel with my chin so I could change gear without interrupting the news.

This was a good question. I couldn't really say “Because we can't afford to,” could I?  Especially seeing the trip to the movies would probably cover the repair cost and more. 

How does one explain that somehow, over time, sorting out the car radio had simply dropped too far down the priority list to be worth spending the money on. 

And for goodness sake, Iron Man III was showing!

I must say, the guests had the last laugh in the end.  With my finger still in the speaker, I had had to slow down a bit as we entered Kaaiman's Pass, with only my remaining hand available to negotiate the bends. After tightening her seatbelt another notch (Mrs Ed showed her how to adjust it using the corkscrew provided) Darryn's mother checked her watch.  In the rearview mirror I saw her lips curl into a mischievous smile.
“The movie's going to start in seven minutes,” she said,  “If you don't want to miss the beginning, you'd better pull finger! "