Housewifey Humor
None of my kitchen appliances are reliable. When our refrigerator began submitting subliminal messages, humming in unpleasant tunes, I reminisced about the days when my parents’ refrigerator, white and outdated by today’s standards, or my grandmother’s brown colored one, lasted nearly 30 years. If today’s kitchen appliance lasts five years, we alert the media with the miracle of survival that our appliance has beat the odds and emerged victorious.
The old Maytag commercials showed the repairman sitting in his office, waiting for the calls that never came because the company’s marketing focus was on the reliability of their appliances. I don’t know if that is still true. I have a Maytag appliance—my washing machine—which we bought two years ago after our old machine flooded our home. This, after multiple repairs. It let us know in the worst of ways it was done. Not only did we need a new washing machine, but we also repaired and refinished our wood floor. Several thousand dollars later, we had a new washer.
We replaced all the appliances in our home when we bought it 11 years ago. Not all of the appliances have survived. At the most inopportune time, as I’m ready to put a chicken in the oven, meticulously timed to finish roasting when the side dishes are done, and my husband will sit comfortably at the table ready to savor the scents tantalizing his nose, the oven refuses to heat. Stuck in the 100-degree mark, whatever is supposed to catch and light my fire never clicks, so I open the door and stick my head in and sniff. No smell of gas, no heat, and a raw chicken sitting on the counter. If it was still alive, it would be smirking.
“We’ll be there in a few days,” the repair office responds gently to my exasperated pleas. No amount of bribing them with roasted chicken, once it is cooked in a working oven, would get anyone there sooner.
No amount of bribing them with roasted chicken, once it is cooked in a working oven, would get anyone there sooner.
Our next most expensive replacement was our refrigerator. I thought owning the French door refrigerator with its sophisticated water filter was my dream, but it became a nightmare after five years when it suddenly stopped doing its job. No two-week notice, no warning, just decided to stop chilling, which it was specifically hired to do. Thus began a long-term relationship with our appliance repairman whom I promptly called (I had his cell number by then) and nervously waited to be seen by him at his next available opening, anywhere from two days to two months, give or take.
First, I replaced a part that had to stabilize the electronic system. To me, an electronic system involves plugging the plug into the outlet and having it hum. I don’t ask questions; I don’t want to know how everything works, I simply require the Antarctic cold to appear in my refrigerator via the electric system. But with all the fanciness we don’t need for the food to survive we are tied into NASA for our appliance parts to have lengthy conversations about who will support whom and when.
The next breakdown involved the motherboard — similar to the transmission in our cars that is necessary to keep them running, and cheaper to buy a new car than to replace the lofty part. But we could not afford a new refrigerator, so we replaced the motherboard, about the size of a credit card, and almost as much as a new car transmission. Surely, this had to be the final, ultimate replacement to keep our refrigerator humming happy tunes for the next 30 years.
Our area was in the direct path of Hurricane Helene in 2024. We lost power for two weeks, and for two weeks, my refrigerator rested. I emptied it and cleaned it, and the inside sparkled. When power was restored, I refilled it with the food that had been carefully stored in a friend’s freezer, and bought more food to replace what we had lost. I also learned that once almond milk is opened, it does need refrigeration to keep from spoiling, in case you were wondering.
For about two weeks, the refrigerator seemed to be in a good mood, buzzing its calming theme song. But then, its mood grew dire. It stopped humming.
My reflexes reached for the phone but my husband decided that was enough. He was tired of paying the repairman’s mortgage, tired of giving him money just to show up regardless if our refrigerator had any hope of survival left. We needed to remove the overpriced life support system it had been using to stay alive. And so, on our way to Lowe’s, I researched “best refrigerators to buy” and not one of them was a Maytag. Our second Whirlpool refrigerator in 11 years arrived less than 48 hours later. I mourned the loss of my old, disloyal refrigerator, filled the new one, and forced myself to cope with the change. Admittedly, it has a nice hum.
As I reviewed our depleting savings account, I wondered: “what noise is that coming from the dryer?”
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