Men & Machines (& Shopping For Each)

Our moms never told us the importance of male shopping habits while shopping for a mate. While it may seem great to find a man who likes to shop, remember that you will find it hard to get away from him. Your shopping trip with just the girls might make him jealous. His spending may rival yours, and that just won't do! No!

If you find a man who abhors shopping and leaves it all to you, there's a certain amount of freedom you can enjoy—picking out the tea towels, for example, to make sure they match the kitchen, or choosing the sheets; do men speak the language of thread count?

My man loathed shopping, and that was good. But after 20 years, his amateur ways have begun to irk me. I indulged him his Christmas sprees, the days he'd head to the mall and, quite literally, meander, picking stuff up and looking at it, putting it back, buying nothing, spending most of the five hours on a bench looking at the scads of people who are actually accomplishing something and getting the hell back home (probably to watch TV).

A few months ago, his boom box was stolen from work (a Catholic school classroom). He decided to "shop" for another. One day, he went to Target, Circuit City, Best Buy. Another day, he went to K-Mart and a few other stores. Each day, he came home with nothing.

I told him, "Honey, every store sells the same crap for just about the same price." He figured that out. I also told him that he needn't have looked much further than Target. (His biggest concern is money, rather than quality.) Everybody sells the same brands, the same styles, the same colors. It's just about where you choose to patronize.

You'd think he'd have learned his lesson. (He never bought the stereo, by the way. I had a nice lime green Memorex boomer from Target, which I'd bought for $50 and gave him after I upgraded to a $65 Sony with detachable speakers.)

Our washing machine broke. It's an 11-year-old Amana, and it started oozing grease because the transmission is dead. My husband, who is rereading Gerry Mander's In the Absence of the Sacred, is doing some lamenting of his own. He is weeping over our disposable society. He is grieving our washer. He told me today, "Look at it! It's still a perfectly good machine!"

BUT IT'S NOT! IT NEEDS A $350 TRANSMISSION! HELLO! ANYBODY IN THERE?

Just because we didn't bang the shit out of it with a hammer and break off all the buttons and buzzers with a pair of pliers doesn't mean the thing is worth more than a buck in parts. The thing not only doesn't work but also has destroyed (by leaving huge black grease spots) three white cotton blankets (2 queens and a twin), a few luxurious towels, my REM tank top (I'm sad about that!), my daughter's white school uniform polo shirt, his gorgeous linen pants (the ones I request when we're going out), and about four sets of sheets. (My daughter is six and cannot hold her water through the night.)

So after the Lander's guy came to tell us the bad news and charge us $70 for the message, my husband went on a tirade about conspiracies, about how the Lander's guy (who fixed our dishwasher twice and replaced our garbage disposal) works for "the man" and how he's only saying that to sell us a new machine. Why, I wondered, would he not want to do the work and get paid for it? Why work, asks my husband, when you can get the customer to just buy a new machine?

Well, I suppose you'd have a point, m'dear, if the Lander's guy WORKED FOR MAYTAG! HELLO? ANY BRAIN CELLS IN THERE? We're not going to be buying a new machine from this guy! He's the repairman!

Oy.

So our out-of-town guests left yesterday, and I fell asleep on the sofa while my daughter watched Men in Black II (are those Ballchinians the best?). When my husband got back from walking the dog, we went to get our machine. Or so I thought.

First, we went to Best Buy, where they have plenty to choose from at reasonable prices. I had decided on a Maytag, since ours was an Amana (now owned by Maytag), but was also looking at the Whirlpools, which have the best reputation. I found two machines, about $350. I was ready to go.

But no. My husband wanted to look some more. In the same shopping center was a Lowe's, so we drove the quarter mile to it and found a perfect machine, a $347 Whirlpool with the same functions as the one we already have. They had three in stock, it would be delivered the next day for $39.95, and they'd take our old one away and hook up the new one. Yes!

No.

My husband didn't want to spend $50 extra dollars for the two features I liked, one of which was an infinitely variable water level (I am a Libra; I need infinite variables!), which our old machine had. The other was a white-painted porcelain barrel, rather than a polka-dotted, granite-looking, dull barrel. OK, that may not be a big deal.

So we left Lowe's, my husband deciding he will continue the search tomorrow. What? This is a man who can't find time to pee during the day. And he's going to spend his second day of summer vacation the same way he spent the first? Looking for the same crap at the same price? I practically MADE him stop at Sears (right across the street!) then, rather than do it the next day (can you believe someone concerned about the environment is going to drive his big gas-guzzling truck back another 6 miles to the same place for the same thing?).

Same crap (except lots of Whirlpool/Roper/GE-made Kenmore applicances), same price. We left.

What's left for him today? BGE Home, which marks up their prices so folks can pay them off as addenda to their gas and electric bills; Lander's Appliance (OK, the repair guy works for a store that sells the stuff, but he didn't even tell us that, so surely he didn't expect us to drive all the way to Essex), Cummins (an expensive place in Pikesville—about 30 minutes away), and a scratch-and-dent place (so when something breaks, the machine will at least look like it's ready to throw in the towel!).

This morning, when he realized this was the state of things, when he lamented and grieved the loss of our washer and our $400, we discussed getting the one I wanted. He still doesn't want to compromise on the $50. He also doesn't want the 5-year warranty. I told him to see if we could extened it after a year, and we'd wait to spend that $100 next year, if we felt we'd need it. I told him to check with Best Buy, who had free shipping, to see if they'd haul for free, and to open up a credit card at Lowe's or Best Buy, if we'd save 10%. I guess he feels the need to control the price he pays. Or control me. Or control the shopping experience.

My husband has, admittedly, done a little more laundry than I because he does a lot of it; he gets up at 5 and often beats me to it. But I do plenty of laundry, too. Plenty. Unlike my husband, I have never shrunk my clothing by leaving the heat on high and the clothes in too long. I have never put red clothing in with whites, making all our tighty whities pinky winky. I have never overloaded the washer and/or the dryer, resulting in unrinsed, wrinkled clothing that needs to dry much longer. My husband admits these things.

Yesterday he said to me, "Let's not wait to do loads of laundry until we have a full load. Small loads won't put a strain on the machine." First of all, I never wait. When I need laundry done, I do it. Second, I never mix whites and colors just to have a full load. And third, strain? Our washer was eleven years old! That's good! That's a nice long life for a washer!

I'm sorry about planned obsolescence; really, I am. But I am not the one who planned it. I'm just the one who has to abide by it.

My husband just called to see if he should write a check for the machine or if he should charge it. Well, we have the funds. No sense in paying interest. But, I told him, apply for the store card if it'll save 10%, right? And buy an air conditioner for the attic, too, while you're there and saving 10%.

He will.