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Technically I don't think I have to get a Christmas present for my wife since we just bought her a new $600 washing machine. Hmmm. Maybe I'd better think on that.
Our old Kenmore washer is only one of the major appliances to go belly-up lately. Just today Honey gave last rites to a small chest freezer that we bought for $30 at a yard sale in May. It arrived just in time to hold massive amounts of homegrown green beans and sweet corn, and many dozens of homemade cookies, all prepared for Worshrag and Busy Bee's wedding reception. It also held the ice cream I previously was forbidden to buy because we had run out of freezer space.
"I loved that little freezer," I lamented.
Last night I opened the freezer to find a carton of my beloved black walnut ice cream had turned to soup. Everything else, the many quarts of garden vegetables Honey put up, and the yummy strawberry, peach and raspberry freezer jam she made, appeared to still be frozen, but in fact were beginning to thaw. (Keep ice cream in a freezer because it's the first thing to melt. It's the canary in the coal mine.)
In June I won the bid for $40 on a small upright Tappan freezer at the Rogers auction. It, too, helped ease our space shortage until it quit a month later. I spent $90 to have it fixed, throwing good money after bad because then the compressor went kaput.
We aren't the only ones losing major appliances.
Miss T's Bosch clothes dryer bit the dust, as I deduced when the corpse showed up in the barn. A refrigerator Seed got at the same Rogers auction as my freezer was DOA when he got it home. Shark lost patience when top burners on her kitchen stove refused to stay fixed.
But just as an ill wind blows somebody good, the Miller family's bad luck is good business for my friends Greg at Six Recycling and Norm at Affordable Appliance.
"HOW MANY TIMES have we repaired that washer?" Honey said. "I want a new one. I don't want a front loader and I don't want one with a computer. I want one with knobs. I used Busy Bee's washer over Thanksgiving and it wouldn't let me set the water level myself."
I started searching the internet.
"Here's a commercial Speed Queen for a thousand dollars."
"I'm not paying a thousand dollars for a washer! And I need heavy duty and high capacity so I can wash rugs. But not so deep I can't reach the bottom."
I kept scrolling.
"Some of them show knobs but they might still have computers. I can't tell."
We decided we had to shop in person, but we couldn't go until we had salvaged the contents of the dying chest freezer.
I helped Honey as she spent the whole morning unloading it, freezing her hands while deciding what could be thrown away and what we could squeeze into our other freezers.
Norm had told me he was getting in a truckload of new scratch-and-dent appliances, so after lunch we started our search at Affordable.
"I'M REALLY TIRED," my wife warned. "Don't be surprised if I buy the first washer I see."
That's exactly what happened.
It's a top-load Maytag with knobs but it also has little indicator lights, which probably means there is a computer chip in there somewhere. Seed helped me horse it into the house. I hooked it up and Honey ran a load.
"Do you love it?" I asked hopefully.
"It's a washer. It's fine," she replied. She has learned not to get emotionally attached. That, and it wouldn't let her set the water level herself. Must be a law now.
Following instructions, I took a picture of a graphic with my phone and texted it to Maytag to register the warranty.
"Welcome to the Whirlpool family of appliances," stated the email I got in reply. "Congratulations on your purchase of a new refrigerator!"
Ah, well, whatcha gonna do?
(Give the gift of Fred Miller for Christmas for $10. His book of 100 stories, "Falling Under Honey's Spell," is available at Connie's Kitchen, Davis Bros. Pharmacies, Frank's Pastry, Giant Eagle Calcutta, Museum of Ceramics, and Pottery City Antique Mall.)