For some time now, our stove and refrigerator have been lobbying for us to replace them so they can retire. This lobbying takes various forms. The refrigerator emits a number of interesting noises, particularly when we are attempting to sleep, and it leaks, especially when we are away for a while. The stove will either operate as a stove OR an oven, but is extremely unhappy when asked to do both at the same time. Every time I go into the kitchen I expect to see the two of them picketing:
We want mandatory retirement!
Don't force senior citizens to work!
"We should really get some new appliances," I said to the Hero. "We could get brought up on charges of abuse with some appliance commission or something."
For a while the refrigerator required continual nursing care. Every few days enough water would leak inside to fill a largish bowl, and we would have to empty it. And if we didn't put the bowl in EXACTLY the right place, the water would run all over the inside of the fridge.
Once when a family member was visiting, I found the bowl sitting on the counter.
"Aaaaagh!" I said. "Who took this out of the fridge?" I hurried to put it back before the fridge noticed it was missing and decided to shed more water than usual.
"Uh, the bowl was empty," the family member noted.
I explained why the bowl never, ever leaves the refrigerator, feeling like a nurse admonishing a patient's family member to never, ever remove a tube of any sort from the patient. The family member was very interested in watching me try to replace the bowl EXACTLY where it had been.
After months of dumping the water that collected in the bowl every few days, the refrigerator suddenly stopped leaking.
"I'm worried about the fridge," I told the Hero.
"But it hasn't leaked for a while," he said.
"That's what worries me," I said. "What is it doing that we don't know about?"
You'd be hard-pressed to find more ancient, basic models than these two appliances, short of something that's actually antique. Yet there are good reasons we haven't replaced them. One, appliances are not as glamorous to shop for as, say, patio sets. Two, if we were to get rid of them, I would have to clean them first.
See, I have been using the fact that a new appliance purchase is imminent as an excuse to not clean either the stove or the refrigerator. But should we actually decide to make a purchase, as we await delivery and installation, I will be seized by the need to thoroughly clean both appliances.
"Why?" the Hero said.
I can't let the guys who take them away see what filth we live in!" I said.
So in the meantime we dream about the features we would like to have in our new appliances, such as a refrigerator that tells us what items we're about to run out of and makes a list of them. Preferably, it would send this list electronically to the grocery store, where someone would fill our order and have it waiting when we went to pick up our items.
"It'd be nice to have one that weighs the food and tells you how many meals you can still get out of it," suggested the Hero.
Given our propensity to put off cleaning, we would also need a frige that tells us -- gently -- when it is time to clean the inside.
But of course we would ignore this, and the refrigerator would be forced to go the next level of reminder, involving some sort of sound alert and a verbal message: "It is time to clean out the bottom shelf. These leftovers have been here too long."
This, too, would probably be ignored, and eventually the refrigerator would rebel. It would sound a louder alert, worthy of the emergency broadcast system, and a voice sounding suspiciously like a mother's would say, "YOU MAY NOT PUT ANYTHING MORE IN THIS REFRIGERATOR UNTIL YOU CLEAN IT OUT!" And it would promptly lock its doors from the inside.
Whereupon we would threaten to replace it with a NEW refrigerator, at which it would sneer. "Do you think any self-respecting fridge would agree to come to this house? You're blacklisted!"
So yeah, we may have our old appliances for a while yet.
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