Our dryer is wearing out, and it’s a tad annoying.
Our dryer is wearing out. If you press start it makes a buzzing noise, but doesn’t go. We taped the door switch down so when we put in the clothes, set the dial and press start we can reach in, grab one of the fins of the drum and give it a spin to get it started. Then it works. The other day Kathy was in there and I heard her, as she gave it the tug to get it going said “Wheel! Of! Fortune!” which made me chuckle a little.
Eventually it will stop working altogether. Then we will probably shake our heads and make a comment about the good old days, when whirlpools were made in Benton Harbor Michigan and they lasted 40 years. Then we will either get online, or drive down to Lowe’s and pick out another Chinese made thing and lament that it will die before we do.
You know what we ought to be doing? (and we already are, really) Praise God that it isn’t the bad old days, when we would be scrubbing the few clothes we would have owned on a washboard in a tub and then wringing them out by hand and hanging them up on a line to dry. Back when washing 4 sets of clothes was several hours of hard labor.
Sunday we had a big family dinner with nine of us sitting down to enjoy a roast. I had emptied the dishwasher that morning and yet, by the end of two meals we had so many dirty dishes that I needed to load and run the dishwasher twice. Again, not all that long ago this would had required hand pumping buckets of water which then needed heated on a stove (which would have had to be stoked with firewood). Then we would have had to spend a couple of hours washing and drying all the dishes by hand.
This morning I got in my seven-year-old Ford Focus and drove to work. It has a dash light on because the people who installed a new fuel pump a year ago didn’t do something right. It shifts funny because it has a cheap transmission which is known for shuddering, slipping gears and hesitation when accelerating. But again, I don’t even have to think back 100 years to know how good I have it. I used to drive a Yugo. I am so blessed to merely have a car that not only reliably gets me wherever I need to go, but it keeps me warm in the Winter and cool in the Summer.
If you want to really change your perspective on some things in your life which might tend to annoy you, try this- do without them for a few days. I can’t imagine spending one week doing all my household chores completely by hand and walking to work (or even riding my scooter in November). It helps to keep the mind in a position of gratefulness to God for the many blessings He has granted us.