Colm O'Regan: The slow demise of the kitchen appliance is an all-too-familiar situation
Colm O'Regan: 'The washing machine is already new after the old one’s drum sounded like it made noises like the Stranger Things Demogorgon.'
Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold as it’s long past its warranty. Although I’m hopeful for the fridge. It’s a situation familiar to anyone who kitted out a kitchen at the same time a long time ago.
The chickens are coming home to roost. We are expecting a budgetary cliff.
The latest is the boiler. And it’s the oldest thing, so the cliff is Dun Aengus. The last one was done in the recession. There were approximately five fewer wars going on. Tradesmen needed work.
Raw materials were coming out of our hoops. Now everything is being burnt and exploded to get a worse deal (Iran, I’m talking about Iran); everything else has gone up in price.
There aren’t enough plumbers, even though it’s the most AI-proof job in the world and should be on the CAO ahead of ANYTHING with the word ‘digital’ on it.
It’s like that movie trope where an old lag, an ex-con who’s done a serious amount of time, comes out of jail and is stunned by a world that has changed so much.
In the movies, they are stunned by the traffic or people walking around, apparently talking to themselves on Bluetooth earphones.
I think it would be a powerful, poignant piece to show them getting a new boiler and trying to get back into jail.
The other stuff has gone as well.
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I have a well-worn path to YouTube to figure out the errors in the tumble dryer, so it can’t be long for this world.
The washing machine is already new after the old one’s drum sounded like it made noises like the Demogorgon. The Saniflo is a maverick. It obeys no timeline. I presume it’ll go while I’m writing this. The fridge never bothers anyone, but surely it is only biding its time.
Kitchen appliance failures are like bankruptcy — they happen gradually, then suddenly. Infrastructure is failing. If I don’t get a handle on this, the far right will rise in our house.
And getting anything done to the house means inviting people into your home who are experts in the Right Way To Lay Out A House.
They are professional and courteous, but, surely, they will judge whatever batshit configuration we have.
“Did you put this in yourselves or was it here when you got here?” they’ll ask, and I’ll start crying, saying: “It was me, I signed off on it, I’m sorry I didn’t think about futureproofing.”
To be fair to all the men who came and fixed problems, if they had reservations they kept them to themselves. There was some reassurance. “That’s the way with these houses”.
It must be amazing to be a plumber in a house that was formerly owned by a plumber.
Everything must be so accessible and not silly and short-termist. Every single terrible idea that they’ve seen in everyone else’s kitchen is avoided.
You hear the phrase in a lot of these old houses. Also, after holidays, we’ve had our heads turned by other people’s layouts.
I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg experiences this in his new gaff? Fellas telling him: “Oh, this is the way they built them in the Norman times.”
Thin-skinned billionaires probably make all the plumbers sign non-disclosure agreements not to talk about what they’ve seen. And since it’s Zuck, they can’t even do so in private. Their phones are listening.
The dishwasher is the last of the old Back Four still working. It’s the Paolo Maldini. Surely not for long.
The day of judgement is nigh. But the years of warranty will follow. The centre will be ok for a while yet, then.
