Over the past weekend, 2 very vital appliances in our household broke down. Appliances which we took for granted and just never thought about what if it suddenly did not function one day.

But that one day, turned out to be last Saturday.

First up was the quintessential water dispenser, which we are now extremely used to instantaneously getting hot and cold water via a simple press of a button. 

So it seems like the UV light which is used to kill any germs in cold water is kinda malfunctioning on and off a little, so sometimes it doesn’t dispense cold water like we want.

Even though I’m pretty sure this UV light thingy is just a marketing spin to warrant a greater price point, nonetheless it has to be fixed for it to work again, and unfortunately the next available servicing appointment is in 2 weeks.

Zavier boy: What?? 2 weeks??

I guess that’s still okay, given that the alternative is quite easy: just dispense hot water and let it cool before putting in the fridge.

Just like 2 years ago when we lived without a water dispenser.

The next thing which broke down was the washing machine. In the middle of a wash. Full of water inside.

Too bad!

We are quite heavy users of the washing machine, given Mama Toh’s OCD insistence of changing clothes multiple times when we go out/come home/go out again on the weekends, but the current machine has served us well without any issues for the past 6 years, and like blind herd in a stock bull market, I just assumed it will continue outperforming my expectations year in year out.

But like all bull markets, things eventually come to a halt.

That’s right yo!

So when it finally stopped working, good old Mama Toh went into denial, insisting and it just needs a rest and we should leave it as it is and try again tomorrow morning, after I suggested that we should just take out all the clothes and manually wash it right away (in financial terms this is kinda like cutting your loss when trading).

But Mama Toh prevailed eventually and the next day, we ended up with a still faulty machine, with clothes soaked overnight in dirty water which now smelled a little, plus more clothes now being piled up in the dirty laundry basket.

Nice one Mama… yet again.

Note: Mama Toh should never do any trading/investment of any kind.

When faced with such a situation, there are a couple of options to attack the growing pile of clothes before the new machine is delivered.

1. Manually wash them by hand.

2. Bring them over to my parents place a few blocks away and defeatedly tell them that I am too lazy to hand-wash my clothes and need to borrow their machine.

3. Do nothing until the new washing machine is delivered, and proceed to initiate the new machine to our house by dumping get half a tonne of clothes for its first wash.

4. Keep silent and pray that your spouse hand-washes the clothes by himself.

Yup it worked alright

In a split second I knew (4) was Mama Toh’s first choice while (3) was a close second. (2) was a distant third and (1) was probably just ridiculous to her.

And so, over the course of slightly over an hour on a beautiful Sunday morning, I squatted down at the bathroom scrubbing and wringing dry 6 bamboo poles worth of clothes.

Which is frankly quite a sucky way to spend a weekend morning. I silently promised myself never to go through that again. 

Except that I did it again. Another 6 bamboo poles worth of clothes, on Monday night. 

Because the new washing machine only delivers on Wednesday!

How does my mum do it?

Guys, trust me on this. Treasure the often neglected things before it’s too late. 

Give your working washing machine a kiss tonight to show your appreciation.