There was once a time when you had items that, when turned on, they would just do what they were meant to do....WORK! There weren't 410 different settings to choose, 39 buttons to push, or 73 different signals to sound. Golly! Whatever happened to those days?
When I went to the car dealership to check out cars a year and a half ago, I had to listen to an hour and a half schpiel about all the extra doo dads and what each did and how you made them do it. I finally interrupted our very nice salesman and said, ' Don't you have a car that you can put the key in, put 'er in gear, and go?' Of course not! It has to have power windows,door locks, alarms, Serius radio, OnStar telephone, etc. C'mon. I could have saved enough to buy a few tanks of gas if I could just have manual roll down windows and push down locks on the doors. Nope, I don't buy your story of all of those radio stations and telephone being 'free for 6 months'. Nothing's free....especially at a car dealership!
Then we have the kitchen appliances. Our house came with them, when we bought the house new. The stove is electric...the first mistake. It runs too hot, at least, the oven does, and after 8 years of trying to adjust temperatures to get the desired doneness of things when baking, I give up. The second mistake is that it has one of those glass cook tops. While I will agree that it's easy to clean IF you clean up a spill before it gets cooked on. However, if you're cooking and something boils over onto the burner, there is no way that you can clean it off until the burner cools, which takes a bit of time. By then, you really have a job. The next problem with that is that you can't scrub it with anything abrasive or you'll scratch the surface, so it actually takes some time to get it clean with a soft scrub product and soft scrubby thing, and a good amount of elbow grease! I won't even address the issues of the appliances, except to tell you that each one has it's own alarm.
The oven has a high pitched beep-beep-beep to let you know it as reached the set temperature. The microwave has a beeeeep-beeeeep, again high pitched, to let you know that the time is up for whatever you have in the little box. The washer sounds a long series of beeps in another high pitched tone, to let you know that the load has finished washing...or something else is happening, maybe a load is off kilter. The dryer is equally demanding with its own irritating cry that it wants attention. The drip coffee pot too, lets you know that coffee is ready, as if I wouldn't be standing over that already, with eagerness for that first swallow of morning caffeine! Consider the possibility that those signals might all sound at one time, which might be likely in this house. It would be quite a cacophony. The ONE appliance that doesn't sound an alarm is one that I wish WOULD. That's the dishwasher. I'll tell you, that thing runs for nearly an hour and a half from start to finish. To save energy, we try to catch it before it goes to the 'heat/dry' cycle. If we do, it will just air dry in the hot dishwasher, and we've saved about a half hour or more of time and electricity.
I could probably come up with a few other things we have that are nearly as frustrating to us, but I'll leave it at this. (If I start discussing the tv/cable and remote, I'll be here far too long!) Suffice it to say that I'm glad for all the appliances, as long as they work,( but I can live without their singing.) I'm an old-fashioned gal, but I do appreciate the work savers that they are. As for my vehicle, I'd still prefer the crank on the door to roll down my windows, the hand-adjustable mirrors, and cars that don't 'talk' to you...(excuse me, your front, passenger-side tire is low on pressure.) Just let me turn the key, put it in gear and go, thank you very much.
Those were the days, my friend....we thought they'd NEVER end.....
