They don't make things like they used to
November 2011
Despite the fact that I don’t watch much TV, I would still miss it if I didn’t have one. I know this for a fact because my TV broke the other week. It was rather annoying because not only was it bloody expensive it was barely 4 years old. Given the expense and the fact that it was made by one of the leading brands, one would have thought it should be slightly better quality.My previous TV broke after a similar length of time and that was also an expensive model from a top of the range manufacturer. The puzzling thing is that the first Television I ever owned was made by an obscure manufacturer I’d never heard of and haven’t seen or heard of since but it lasted for millennia. In fact it was still working when I threw it away. The only reason it was thrown away at all was because it was tiny and I wanted to out-do my parents.
The death of my beloved plasma occurred barely 2 weeks after the washing machine packed up. Again, this was quite an expensive model from a well known brand. It lasted for less than 2 years. It was even more annoying because it packed up mid-cycle. This meant that the door jammed locked with water still in the drum so I had to delicately use a screwdriver to prise the latch open. Needless to say, this failed so I ended up using the slightly less graceful method of hammer and fist.
Still, it wasn’t quite as dramatic as the previous washing machine failure. Like this one, it happened mid-cycle with complete and total destruction of the drum.
Again using a combination of hammer and fist in warranty-invalidating style, I managed to get the half clean washing out. I then decided to disconnect the washing machine and stick it outside for the Pikies to collect next time they came round ringing their bell from their stolen van full of pilfered goods and lead from church roofs.
Now, being both intelligent and possessing enough maintenance knowledge to know about such things, the first thing I did was shut off the valve to the washing machine. This was easy because the valves on my pipes come with those nice little plastic covers that are helpfully marked “open” and “close”. Simple. Just to be on the safe side, I thought I’d better turn the water off at the mains as well, you know, just in case.
So there I was busily unscrewing the hose from the back of the machine and dismissing the little trickle of water emitting from it as the remains of what was left over in the pipe. When I finished unscrewing it I had quite an unpleasant surprise. I can’t really explain what happened because it all happened so fast. Suddenly the hose shot out and started snaking wildly in the air, pissing out literally dozens of gallons of water per second.
You see what I had neglected to do was check the mains water was actually turned off by using the simple method of turning a tap on and off. It never occurred to me that the mains stopcock might have jammed. Even a cynical man like me wouldn’t believe the valve to the washing machine would also have broken. I mean a washing machine breaking, a stopcock jamming and a valve failure all at the same time is rather unlikely. But it happened.
Anyway, managing to catch the flailing rubber serpent by the neck I then, in a moment of sheer panic and blind stupidity, did something very silly. I attempted to stop the gushing water by jamming my finger in the hole. Do you remember those old Loony Tunes cartoons where Bugs Bunny would stick his finger down the end of Elmer Fudd’s shotgun and the thing would backfire? Well it turns out that doesn’t work in real life. No, if you stick your finger in a hole that’s pissing out mains-pressured water, you lose your fingers.
So deciding to stick the hose out of the window while I figured out what to do next, I eventually came to the conclusion that there was only one thing for it; it was going to have to go back in the hole. I spent what felt like hours trying to attach the hose back to the washing machine while mains-pressured water sprayed everywhere, soaking everything in my kitchen and turning the floor into a reservoir.
Needless to say, when the new washing machine packed up I decided to leave it well alone and get my very useful future father-in-law to sort it out. I also decided it wasn’t worth getting stressed about the washing machine breaking because it isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. With my new found Buddhist mindset I decided I could finish washing the clothes in the bath. So I turned the hot tap on. And the hot tap broke.
This is the problem with modern stuff. It’s churned out en-mass from a production line using components made by some toddler in a Chinese sweat shop and consequently the quality is rubbish. It’s also why most warranties last between 1 and 3 years because manufacturers know their products will self-destruct after 2 or 4 years.
Perhaps this was why the bloke in Curry’s, after attempting to sell me insurance, extended warranties, insurance for the warranties and warranties for the insurance, suggested we should break the washing machine and television ourselves just before the warranty expires so we will get a replacement.
Of course, you might as well wipe your arse with the warranty for all the use it will be. You can guarantee that somewhere in the small print is a clause that says the warranty will be invalid if the item in question breaks down on a Wednesday or anytime between midnight and 11pm the following year or when Venus aligns with Mars.
With this recent spate of household breakages, I’m now worried that my house will fall down. After all, it was built in the 1960’s so the builders were probably on acid. Although older houses were built to last and constructed with bricks and cement rather than cardboard and sticky tape like modern houses in the same way that older cars were more durable than these modern computer-controlled abominations, I’ve become rather paranoid. So I jumped in my car to speak to a man I know about getting some work done on the house and my car broke down. True story.
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