progress

Posted on February 4th, 2009 at 12:09 pm by admin

136


The drama over our nonfunctional washing machine appears to have drawn to a close.

Taking video of said washer in action and threatening to put it up on YouTube did the trick.

Keep in mind that nothing short of that did.

Anyway, they hauled away the washer this past weekend. I am supposed to get a cheque in the mail sometime soon.

What’s most interesting about this whole episode isn’t the near-disaster state of affairs at Sears. Nor the shoddy offshore quality of the new line of washers.

It was our response.

Number one: We didn’t take them to a lawyer.

We took them to the Internet. Faster, cheaper, and it lasts forever. Anybody can do it. Nobody has to quiver before the might of a big company anymore.

Number two: We didn’t buy a new washer to replace this one.

Over the past few weeks, we discovered that we don’t need one. Nobody needs one.

There are these places called “laundromats,” and there’s one lovely clean one right around the corner from our house. They have double-, triple-, and sex-tuple sized washers that do the job in 20 minutes.

20 minutes to do five loads of laundry. In two washers.

At home, we hang up some of it, and put the rest in our double-size dryer, and presto, a week’s laundry done within an hour.

No more Saturdays spent waiting for a 60-minute cycle to end.

How much water is this method saving? How much electricity? And how much of our valuable time?

In the old days (and in many poor countries today), women used to gather by the river to wash clothes together. It was a social time. Laundromats are good for that too.

Our culture has been told that we need labour-saving appliances in our homes. But here is a middle-class family of four going back to the old way. It makes more sense.

Number three: Long-term relationships are worth more than big names.

We decided to get a replacement washer from a used appliance shop that sold us our first washer, dryer, fridge, and stove. Andre still works there. In fact, he fixed our freezer and old dryer a couple of times. We know him well.

That is why we bought from him.

The washer is a good five years old, but in good shape and very clean. Andre gives a one-year guarantee, same as the big shops. Except that he’s not going to screw us around or wait till we show him the YouTube video. We have a relationship with him. It’s valuable to him, and it’s valuable to us.