Well, I have to admit that I was a little bit concerned that these posts might lean heavily towards the historical narrative what with life on the island having improved so substantially in the 10 years that we have been living here. I worried that maybe frustratingly annoying occurrences were at a low point and that I would be scraping the bottom of the barrel for suitable material.
Fear not, though. It may turn out that there has not actually been a shift in the winds of fortune as much as a shift in my personal perspective or tolerance. From a survival standpoint, I may have become more accepting of higher levels of aggravation than I would have been 10 years ago. By way of an example, here’s what honestly happened yesterday.
We have a washer and a dryer. Not really shocking news, I know; but not everybody does. Everything on an island is more expensive – from the appliance itself to the electricity to run it to the constant maintenance required to keep it working in a corrosive seaside environment. As a result, plenty of folks here still hang their laundry out to dry just like my mother during my childhood summers – using the ‘green’ alternatives of wind and solar to dry clothes.
Eleven years ago when we started to build our house certain conveniences were even rarer. We were nearly moving into the house before I noticed that there was no allowance for a vent for our clothes dryer. Not something that we thought we had to specify along with the placement of the 220V outlets for the washer and dryer themselves. We didn’t even think about it. If you are a island builder, however, who doesn’t have a dryer (and if you did have one it would probably be outside on your porch venting its own self) you wouldn’t think of it either which meant jack-hammering through steel-reinforced, 8-inch concrete block to retrofit one in.
Then we had to find a dryer vent in a world where apparently very few people knew they existed. We had shipped everything that we possibly could for the house from the States (including the appliances themselves); but we had obviously overlooked the dryer vent. In store after store after store (this will be a recurring theme), we came up empty. Until someone suggested we check with the folks who sold appliances on island at that time. Eureka! They had one.
Over the years, as one or another of our appliances have found its way to the island dump, we have turned to these helpful and experienced folks on island for replacements. So it was that a little over two years ago, we came to possess a new washing machine. Having purchased it on island we were even saved the added expense and trouble of hauling it to our house and installing it ourselves. They delivered it and hooked it up for us. Nine months later when the motor died they even replaced it for us (at our expense, of course, because you can always blame mechanical problems on the electric company here – but they did put the new one in).
Anyway, for all these months, I have been washing my laundry on the cold if not ‘tap cold’ setting on the washing machine. You see our water comes from a cistern under the house not from mountain streams that empty into big, deep reservoirs. That means the cold water out of our tap runs about 84 degrees. So unless I am washing something that requires really aggressive cleaning, ‘cold’ water is fine. Mostly I wash sheets and towels, sun dresses and shorts and Michael’s Hawaiian shirts that require gentle, cold washing or ‘for best results, dry clean’ (but don’t even think about that). It’s always been a point of contention that those shirts seem to keep getting smaller. And I’ve never understood why in spite of the cold setting, laundry always still feels warm when I take it out of the machine.
Yesterday, finally, I had enough. I was going to call General Electric and find out if I could just turn off the hot water to the washing machine. First, though, like a good consumer, I searched the internet for my expert advice. Everything I could find argued against taking that approach. So, customer service phone number in hand I picked up the phone to call to get the official answer. Then I froze. A little, tiny voice in the back of my mind said, ‘Wait, you don’t want to look stupid, Georgia.’ (This little voice in the back of my mind obviously knows me very well because there are precious few things that I hate worse than looking stupid. )The voice went on, ‘What might be the first thing General Electric Customer Support will ask you to check?’ And that little light bulb went on above my head, and I knew. I just knew. So I put down the pad with GE’s phone number, picked up the flash light, and crawled on top of the washing machine. Sure enough the hose connected to the hot water faucet snaked its way across to the connection on the washing machine that was clearly marked “C”….clearly, with a 1-1/2 inch embossed letter. And by default the cold water hose went right into the connection marked “H”.
It is fixed now, but I think this illustrates my point perfectly. Ten years ago, at the very first sign of a problem, I would have assumed that somebody did something wrong. It would have been my go-to answer. Trust no one. Now, I’ve become complacent. I mean, look. I’ve been using that machine for two years and just accepted that Michael’s shirts were shrinking due to some freakish will of island nature. What does that say about me and the person I am becoming?
