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Appliance Compliance
Jul. 20th, 2006 08:42 amFirst of all, thank you for the support around dealing with my brother. It would seem that setting boundaries was effective. He arrived (unannounced, but what else is new) on Tuesday with the VCR in a great mood showing no apparent rancour. I will take this as a sign that I can, in fact, set boundaries in the future. I rewarded him with fresh pesto sauce, scratched him behind the ears and said, "goooooood brother".
The VCR ended up needing $75 in repairs and it had to be done to retreive the tape. But in reality, I don't mind. This old RCA was purchased in around 1993 and is still going strong. The idea of an appliance lasting 13 years is now considered ridiculous. The modern model is cheap initial price and landfill in two or three years.
This is a model that makes me see red. It's hard to describe the fury this puts me in as I witness a witless parade of human waste being put forward as an appropriate lifestyle.
I have to confront this today as my two year old Panasonic microwave has just died for the second time. When it died after only three months, the repairman told me that Panasonic was great because they never challenged warranty repairs. Beyond that, he said, it is just as crappy as every brand out there.
Clearly, I will not be able to leave the repair shop without spending another $75 even if the part being replaced costs pennies. What I'm supposed to do at this point is toss the unit into landfill (or rather, have my tax dollars spent to haul it to landfill and then truck it somewhere where it will pollute the land) and go spend $150 on a new one. Rinse. Repeat.
Anyone have any suggestions on how I can break this cycle? I've said before that I would happily spend twice as much to have something that lasted 15 years — but twice as much only seems to get you designer crap with a brushed-aluminum finish.
The VCR ended up needing $75 in repairs and it had to be done to retreive the tape. But in reality, I don't mind. This old RCA was purchased in around 1993 and is still going strong. The idea of an appliance lasting 13 years is now considered ridiculous. The modern model is cheap initial price and landfill in two or three years.
This is a model that makes me see red. It's hard to describe the fury this puts me in as I witness a witless parade of human waste being put forward as an appropriate lifestyle.
I have to confront this today as my two year old Panasonic microwave has just died for the second time. When it died after only three months, the repairman told me that Panasonic was great because they never challenged warranty repairs. Beyond that, he said, it is just as crappy as every brand out there.
Clearly, I will not be able to leave the repair shop without spending another $75 even if the part being replaced costs pennies. What I'm supposed to do at this point is toss the unit into landfill (or rather, have my tax dollars spent to haul it to landfill and then truck it somewhere where it will pollute the land) and go spend $150 on a new one. Rinse. Repeat.
Anyone have any suggestions on how I can break this cycle? I've said before that I would happily spend twice as much to have something that lasted 15 years — but twice as much only seems to get you designer crap with a brushed-aluminum finish.
