Up early this morning to buy a second-hand washing machine for Casa Armadillo. Had to leave the last one at the Nightcliff Road house when Jenny P rented it fully furnished.
Drove out to a newly-opened reconditioned whitegoods warehouse at Berrimah. Middle-aged bloke, crewcut. Skinny the way you get when you spend all your money on beer and don’t want to waste any on food.
“I’ve got 3 in stock. These two big 6 kg Simpsons, and this little 4 kg Hoover.”
“The little one’ll do. It’s only for me. Marriage breakup, ya know.”
“Congratulations mate. Welcome to the club,” he said. “Freedom.”
“Yeah, couldn’t agree more,” I said. “But washing clothes isn’t exactly the best part of it.”
“Oh mate. If you’ve got money there’s just heaps of pussy everywhere.”
“You might be right. But I haven’t got any money. So much for that theory.”
“Ya just bullshit. I do it all the time and it works real well.”
“Might be a bit hard with this old rusty Mazda hatchback,” I mused doubtfully.
“There’s always a way,” he said, and gave me a free extended three month warranty on the Hoover.
Wayne, you are vindicated yet again. I feel for Parish. The price of freedom … all he has left, all he has to his name, is a crappy old mazda, a crappy old washing machine and a convincing line of bullshit.
The mazda’s okay, Ken. Even the lack of money. But the 4k Hoover is a bit of a worry — even with the extended warranty. These days (well okay, around here) to be a real man, you’ve gotta have a 7.5kilo extra heavy duty model — and know how to drive it.
Yeah, but we are talking Darwin. Shorts in the top of the machine, coupla nylon shirts, the hawaian numbers for the weekend.. tee shirt for when you have to dress up.. no need for towels in the wet season cos you just sweat the fluid right back onto your torso..
just as long as your sunnies are polished.
ps – in case you think this is cruel, think of my situation: thirteen years in a rented St Kilda flat that my friends all say is gorjus, just gorjus, except that there’s nowhere to put a washing machine AT ALL without major structural alterations. So, week by week I put our washing into a trolley and zig zag through the traffic across the tramlines to the local washeteria…
and.. just to be completely irrelevant, the designer of the Citroen DS is said to have been one of the first Frenchmen to wear a nylon shirt.
I’m worried about youn washing machine choice too Ken. If you really need to, you can get rid of friends and partners, and you do. Somehow crappy appliances seem to stick around because you won’t replace them until they are really cactus.
Leave relationships in the laps of the Gods and take great care of white goods.
James,
Strange you should suggest this. I may have been following your advice without even realising it. I carelessly misplaced “B” last night during a night-time cycling expedition to a Cullen Bay restaurant, after I took a left turn downhill that she failed to notice in the dark. I carried on to the restaurant after a short search for her, and I certainly wasn’t the most popular item on the menu when she eventually arrived about 30 minutes later. Fortunately my washing machine and other whitegoods remained safe throughout.
:-)
I see your point of view Ken even if B doesn’t. In a way by cutting and running like that you were empowering her.
You will have achieved true wisdom when you can explain without remorse “Sorry hon’, I would have stopped and looked for you longer but it was a bad area and I was worried about my new bike.”