Electrical Mechanism Hostilities

Now that I have caught the attention of the United States Government, I would like to say you can simmer down!  This blog has nothing to do with any foreign or US terrorist activity - unless you consider my everyday appliances a national threat.  However, if you would like to step up and replace any of them, I am more than willing to negotiate!

I am pretty sure in past blogs, I have mentioned my gullible nature for advertising ploys.  You may recall my dishwasher debacle - I fell hook, line and sinker for Kelly Ripa's Electrolux advertisement's and purchased a dishwasher because of her seal of approval.  It turned out to be a huge mistake. I had to replace it within fifteen months, only to be limited to another Electrolux dishwasher! At this time, I am hand washing dishes 85% of the time because they are never sparkling clean. Anyway, it started from there and has only gotten worse.

I am not entirely sure why all of our electric appliances hate it here so much but at this point, I am ready to go old school and move to the country get a bucket and a wringer, build a spring house and cellar and call it a day! 

Here is the current list of broken appliances in my home (No worries, there is a story for each one)

1. Dishwasher
2. Refrigerator
3. Microwave
4. Garage Door Opener
5. Garbage Disposal
6. Straight Iron
7. Curling Iron
8. iPods (2)

We already covered the dishwasher, so we will move right along to the refrigerator.  One day I went over to get some ice for my drink and pushed the cup in to the space where the ice falls out and in to your cup.  Much to my dismay, nothing happened!  NOTHING!  I opened the door and pulled out the ice storage unit and there was nothing in it. I messed with all the buttons and knobs I could find and still nothing.  I called my husband, who checked the water line, pushed all the same buttons and knobs and still nothing.  Since we didn't really have any extra money to spend on something as important to me as ice, we dealt with it by purchasing ice cube trays.  I am not going to spend a whole lot of time on this ice maker situation but it must be said, ice cube trays in a house with four kids, not a fabulous combination!  I lived without manufactured ice for a good six months before I could no longer take it and found the money to replace the ice maker.  I installed it all by myself and had ice cubes by the days end. 

A few months later, we were sitting in our living room and watching television and the refrigerator started making this humming sound.  In all fairness, it was sort of melodic and I found myself soothed by it at first.  By the next day, the soothing stopped and it had become a loud, irritating, buzzing noise!  After some Google searching we came to realize it was due to a frozen back panel which had caused the fan to freeze up.  Great!  This is just what I need and within twenty-four hours, the entire fridge was inoperable. Luckily, we had little food, an upright freezer and a mini fridge in the garage where we were able to put our rations.  The fridge had to sit unplugged and empty for a couple days to thaw.  How much fun was this?  Oh so much fun!  As you are probably aware, you can not leave the doors closed when a refrigerator is not in use. How lovely to have the doors open all the time and instead of yelling at one's offspring to close the dag gone fridge doors, you are now yelling, "LEAVE THEM OPEN!".  Since having a refrigerator repair person come out is costly, we have opted to deal with the twenty-eight day cycle (it works great for about twenty-seven days and then the humming begins).  The great news is, I have even figured out how to get this cycle to work with my grocery shopping!

The microwave isn't a huge deal in the great scheme of things.  The only issue with it is the light underneath doesn't work.  I have changed the light bulb only to have it work for a moment and then BAM it's gone.  If you smack it just "so" sometimes it will provide a moments light but again, it has to be a direct, just "so" smack.  It just isn't worth the effort unless I want to take out some pent up hostility on something.

Moving right along, in the spring our garage door opener decided it can only pull the garage door up a quarter of the way, gives up and the door goes crashing down.  Fabulous, right?  Why yes it is fabulous!  In order to get my Pilot out of the garage I have to push the wall button and sprint across the garage floor, avoiding the children's shoes, rain boots, and whatever else has found itself a home along the garage wall, grab underneath the door and give it a little help to get past the quarter of the way hump and then and only then, will it finish the job a little past the halfway point.  It gets really frustrating if you don't make it to the door in time or if you let go before it reaches the magical spot where it can pull it again.  I love home ownership!

Are you feeling my pain yet?  One would think this would be the end of it!  There couldn't be more, could there?  Oh yes there could! I am "The Queen of Insanity"! How could I exist without some kind of constant crisis?

The Badger has gone off the prairie, I repeat, The Badger has gone off the prairie! "What is a Badger?", you may be asking.  Badger is the name of my garbage disposal - my sister's too.  In fact, my sister and I have a long standing joke about The Badger.  You do not have any idea how dependent you are on your garbage disposal until it is not working.  I have caught myself, on more than one occasion, dumping things into it, only to have to dig them right back out.  Can you say gross?  BLAH! 

My kids (no one has ever stepped forward taking responsibility) broke my very expensive, and obviously purchased prior to my downward financial spiral, FHI straight iron.  On a more positive note, I have learned to go with the flow of my natural curls.  Subsequently, someone broke Abigail's curling iron.  Karma?  I do not know, just sayin'.

In addition to all of this, two of my kids' iPod touches, spontaneously went to the dark side and will no longer do anything! I can't even blame the kids for this one because my own iPod did the very same thing and I gave it special care!  Personally, I think this is a plot of Apple's.  They suck you in with cool technology and right before they come out with something new, "Oh Snap!  My iPod isn't working!" Hmmmmmmm....suspicious, yes?

In closing, if by chance, you see a high speed chase on the news, following a bank heist, and there is a curly haired, crazy woman driving a silver Pilot with a stick family on the side, and other accolades of children stuck to it - it would be a safe bet to guess it's me, The Queen Insanity gone off the reservation!

Sincerely,
The Queen Of Insanity