Apply-ances

My career was as a Human Resources professional. I worked first for a small, family-owned business (actually, they owned 4 businesses - the owner was quite an entrepreneur), then left there and went to work for an International pharmaceutical company at a manufacturing facility. The women who worked in the Plant were always telling me "old wives' tales" or their superstitions.

For instance, they used to always say that death goes in threes. In other words, if someone you love dies, two other people close to you will soon die. It might be the parent of an in-law or a friend, but deaths always run in threes and the other two are personal.

I've noticed over the years that deaths do seem to run in threes. I'm not a superstitious person and I find it very odd, but I'm never surprised anymore when the second death hits and maybe even a little prepared when I hear of the third.

Lest you think I'm wacko, I really don't LOOK for additional deaths when the first one happens. And maybe it's all malarky. But the one I'm really interested in is that appliances break in two's.

I have often been concerned that maybe this is true. Not long after Don and I first married, one of our appliances went out. I can't quite remember which one, but something had to be replaced. The next thing we knew, the dryer wasn't drying our clothes. Don spent a Saturday messing with it, went out a bought a new part for it, got all ready to install the new part when, presto, the dryer started working again. It seems that it only gives us problems on a certain cycle.

For at least 8 years now, we've held off using the part. It still sits in the laundry room (tucked away in a cabinet now) and I've always felt like we cheated fate, and happily so.

If there's anything to this deaths in 3's and appliances in 2's thing, fate is getting me back.

Several weekends ago, Don made dinner for the children for me. He seldom does that anymore, even though he's a great cook. When I got home, he informed me that the oven wasn't closing. Assuming he was using this as an excuse to not cook anymore, I checked it myself. Sure enough. The door was sitting about an inch open. You could push it closed, but it would pop back out again as soon as you removed the pressure.

He told me he'd work on it the following weekend and see if he couldn't get the door to behave. In the meantime, I was doing my cooking with the door slightly ajar - until Thursday night, Pizza Night. I popped the frozen pizza into my 400 degree preheated oven but before the pizza was ready, one of the knobs had melted off the front of the oven. The next day, Don began taking it apart.

Saturday afternoon, he declared, "The oven is dead. We need to take it in the backyard and shoot it. You better get on-line and find yourself a new oven."

On-line didn't quite do it for me. I wanted to see the oven in person before I made a commitment to it. I suggested we go as a family to look at ovens and eat dinner while we were out. He agreed.

We finally settled on one from Sears. It's black (which Deanna and I both wanted and Don thought was silly because it wouldn't go with the rest of our appliances), gas, and has lots of features I really have wanted, included self-cleaning and programmable cooking so it can start the job while you're not even home.

It was delivered the following Monday and it took Don several evenings to get it leveled and hooked up. But I'm very happy with our new oven.

However . . . (you knew that was coming, didn't you?) within a week, we had another appliance mishap. Last Sunday evening (it MAY have been 2 weeks ago), I sent the boys to take their baths. Deanna had run up to my parents' house to interview my mother for a school project. I was in the kitchen, making lunches, loading the dishwasher, and throwing together dinner for the children when Daelyn ran in and said that someone had used up all his hot water.

"You just have to turn the handle further, son," I instructed him.

"Mama, it didn't matter how far I turned the handle - the water was still cold!"

Following a deep discussion about just how far he turned the handle, I decided the check for myself. Sure enough, pretty much ice cold water, and both boys had bathed in it.

I asked Don to check the circuit breakers, but when he was slow to break away from what he was doing, I checked them myself. He called to me while I was looking.

"The water heater isn't on a circuit breaker, Mommy. It's gas."

Sure enough. No circuits thrown. Don got up and checked the water heater. The drip pan was full of rusty water. Not good news.

The short version is that I spent the entire day yesterday getting an approval code from Rheem (it was still under Warranty) for a new one, then going to a Rheem dealer and filling out all the paperwork, then having it delivered. Today a plumber connected it up.

I was breathing a sigh of relief. "Okay," I thought, "that's our two appliances," when the vent fan over the stove suddenly came to a grinding halt while I was using it.

"Uh, oh," Don said, "do we need a new hood, also?"

"Maybe we can get one in black to match the oven," I suggested. And, no, I didn't rig it. Did I have the numbers wrong with appliances?