The other day, out of left field my fridge died. It put up the best fight it could, we even thought she'd last another year or two, but she gave up her fight. We just weren't prepared for it. Losing the appliance hurt. Losing everything in it hurt worse. (A bright spot though, someone in my community bestowed a random act of kindness upon us to help us out. What a true surprise and blessing.)
We're not fussy people when it comes to appliances. I don't need the best one out there with all the bells and whistles. I just want something that will keep my cold food cold and my frozen foods frozen. Listen, we've gone for the past, oh, I don't know, five years with no washer or dryer that works in the house. We survived. Laundromats are actually faster and it doesn't impact our home's water consumption. But a fridge? How did people survive before them?!
In some ways we're lucky, we had my daughter's dorm fridge in the garage to cover the essentials, but trust me when I say it doesn't hold much. It wasn't meant to.
We actually thought that the time would come where we'd be able to just go out and buy the appliances we need and be done with it. But life has other plans sometimes. Like throwing a lemon of a car in the mix to insure that we never get even, much less ahead.
But wait, it gets better. Since we're already about as broke as we can be, our Neighborhood Association has noted that our side gate isn't in compliance and needs to be repaired and painted. No big deal we thought. Our daughter builds theater sets, she can do it. And she could've too, if all the wood wasn't rotted. So now we have to buy wood and add a whole new fence door to the mix before we get fined for that.
So, truly, when taking the long view, do I really need to feel guilty that I didn't do any product studying these past few days? hmmmmm