No, before any of you freak out . . . I'm not talking about the baby. Not yet! I'm talking about a clothes dryer. We've been without one for going on a year and a half and seemed to have settled into a nice little laundry routine.
I guess I should stop and explain something about dryers in this part of the world . . . most people don't know that they even exist. The ones that might know they exist, don't understand how they work. And the ones who know all about them often just can't afford them. They're pretty expensive in the local currency.
While we'd gotten into a good routine and learned all the tricks to getting clothes dried in the most timely fashion the old-fashioned way, we recently found out that a couple of appliance stores in our little city had started selling dryers. We checked out a couple of catalogs but couldn't get past the sticker price. Then the craziest thing happened . . . the worldwide economic crisis . . . and the value of the dollar against the local currency here shot up overnight. We still weren't completely sold on buying another appliance, especially one that most of our friends and neighbors don't have or may not even know are available.
After a few more weeks of the dollar staying high and doing some research online to check prices and warranty information, Mark decided to venture into a store downtown to check things out. He found a model like we had seen online and this past weekend he took me to look at it in person, too. We both liked the quality of the machine, the extra 4 year warranty we could purchase, AND the fact that it was on sale! We still didn't want to make a decision on the spot because there was information about features that the man at the store couldn't give us. I wanted to do a little more reading online.
We got home that evening, checked out our questions online, looked at the prices again online, and decided we did want to buy it. The problem was this . . . we could actually get it cheaper if we ordered it online than if we bought it from the store. One or both of us would need to go back and try to bargain the price again and tell them that if we couldn't get it for a certain amount we would not give them our business. Can you guess which of us actually did that? It wasn't me!!! I told Mark that my heart just couldn't do it. I know that's how business is done here all the time, but I couldn't bear the thoughts of having to be the one to have the conversation with the sales guy.
Mark went back today, and what do you know? They came down to the price we asked for!!! And the price for the extra 4 years of warranty was quite a bit cheaper than we originally thought (we had understood wrong the first time he told us). So that was that . . . we became the proud new owners of a shiny new dryer!
It was delivered tonight and I've already dried my first little load . . . socks! "Why just socks?" you might ask. Well, earlier in the afternoon I had done a load of laundry, hung up all the pants and shirts but realized a couple of hours later (after the dryer had been plugged in) that I hadn't hung up the socks. And of all the things I hate hanging up to dry socks are at the top of the list! So I thought to myself, "Just throw those things in the dryer!" And I did. It felt great. Granted, it has taken 40 minutes or so for them to get dry, but . . . . . as they say, "Beggars can't be choosers!"
I think this addition to our home will be rather handy when our other little addition arrives!
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