The Curse of Progress

The past couple of months every appliance I have seems to be on the blitz. When we first moved in to this rental home, the dishwasher didn't work. The little spring that opens the door on the soap dispenser is sprung, so it won't open during the proper time during the cycle. The dishes come out dirtier than when I put them in. So we hand wash our dishes because I don't care about getting it fixed.

The secondhand fridge Mike bought to tide us over until we move again started making what I can only call "tap dancing" sounds several months ago. It has something to do with the compressor. When it shuts off the fridge start to rock back and forth and makes this rhythmic popping sound. We are just going to let it go until it blows up or dies. It is embarrassing, but it's fun to dance to!

Then a month ago the dryer stopped heating up. Of course to fix it costs almost as much as buying a new one, and Mike refuses to buy any large new appliance that we would have to move to our new place (where ever that is). So he figured out how to fix it himself (bless him!), and now I can have dry clothes again.

If that weren't enough, the Honda Civic we bought as a second car (and for Danika, who is driving now) started making this annoying metal-on-metal sound a few weeks ago. It comes and goes, so we ignored it. But yesterday it was so bad that Mike told me to take it in to find out what is making that sound. Turns out our brake pads are gone, and we need new front brakes. That is something we can't ignore, so we will be shelling out for that repair.

Honestly, sometimes "progress" is a pain! Cleaning guru Dan Aslett says that each item we accumulate, “stifles us and robs us of freedom because it requires so much of our time to tend. . . . We have to pay for it, keep track of it, protect it, clean it, store it, insure it, and worry about it." While I wouldn't want to do without a refrigerator, dryer, or brakes for my car, I wonder what I could do without that would make my life simpler.