Not Holding My Breath

The other day I picked up a pencil and saw that it needed sharpening. So, I went to my sharpener, pushed the pencil in and began cranking the handle. Grind, grind, grind. I sharpened my pencil, or at least I thought I did. I looked at the tip, expecting to see the pointed lead peeking out of the freshly scraped wood, but what I saw instead made me want to throw the pencil in an incinerator and slam the door. The lead was not sharp, but dull and sagging listlessly to one side. Another dud, I thought. The way some companies make pencils causes them to fail all too easily. I knew then, as I have realized for some time now, that the 'good old days' are over.

Even in my limited experience, I can remember a time when people would look at you over the counter with a mixture of unbelief and wonder, as you returned an item which you had purchased at their store. They hardly knew what to do with it because it happened so seldom. You would have to go through several people, forms and procedures before you were able to take care of the problem, but were almost always given a strong apology and a surprised shake of the head over what had happened. Few and far between were the incidents of return with surprise being the most prevalent emotion.

In my house I have a central vacuum. When the house was built, there was a large vacuum installed in the garage to provide the suction. That vacuum lasted about 35 years. When it was replaced, they put in a heavy duty shop vacuum that looked like it could pull a truck. That vacuum lasted about five years. When we moved into this house it had just been given another new shop vacuum, replacing the one that had lasted five years. Two years later, we replaced the new vacuum. Six months later that new vacuum died and they gave me a new one because it was still under warranty.

To me, this represents a pattern. It wasn't so very long ago when if you bought something, you expected it to last your entire lifetime. Whether it was a car, a refrigerator or a bicycle, or even a pencil, it was gratifying to know that you had purchased something that would serve you for a long time to come. I know someone who just recently replaced her refrigerator after owning and using it for sixty years or so. She took care of it, and it took care of her. I don't envy her though, because now she has a new refrigerator. In fact. I pity her. What she has to look forward to is a long series of small failures: Tiny plastic parts that look fine when you purchase the refrigerator, but when put to the test will fail every time. Big plastic shelves, supposedly designed to hold milk, eventually break under the strain of continuous use. Shoddy workmanship, poor design and planned obsolescence are the norm today and I have the skeletons and the receipts to prove it!

In the last year I have returned, or needed to return at least ten new items I have purchased. This, in my opinion, is astronomical! Why is it that I have to keep every receipt, make note of the date of every purchase and remember exactly where I purchased something in order to protect myself from the faulty manufacturing and products being sold to me? It isn't that I purchase cheap things. The glass-topped stove I purchased at a well-known and reputable business that failed after a year and a half was not cheap. The three vacuums I have acquired in the last five years were not cheap. The faucets for my kitchen sink were not cheap. My new dishwasher that died just after the warranty expired was not cheap. Now I need a new refrigerator, but I'm afraid to buy one because I have fought with the one I have for so long over the cheap way they build the shelves that I keep wondering if it wouldn't be better to find a sixty-year old fridge at a junk yard and refurbish it, rather than go through the hassle of a new one that will probably fail in the next six months or a year.

I don't think I'm just being cynical when I say that things 'just ain't what they used to be'. I have come to expect that anything I buy will fail in a matter of hours. I refuse to buy toys because they have long been on the 'they-break-before-you-get-them-home' list. But what really made me suspicious that this is more than my imagination was when I went to return my vacuum after just six months of use. There at the store, like another check-out line, was the return line. The line was full. It was as though in one line they check you out and take your money, and in another, you come to get your money back, or maybe another product that actually works. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The sad part is, that we still think we might get something that works. But me? Well, I'm not holding my breath.