Have you ever thought why do things need to come apart or why do things come off an object that should stay on all the time & my favorite, why do they try to improve things that are already perfected? I have a long list of things that drive me crazy & I bet you do also if you really think about it. What spurred this topic is an ongoing incident I have with my Yukon. I have said for years that women need to be the designers of vehicles, particularly ones that are driven as “Mom Taxis” & for women that are considered a “Girl Friday” like I am for our business. Vehicles need to be equipped with shelves & drawers & built in trash cans. The console I have in my Yukon is not big enough for my bottle of ibuprofen, papaya pills (natural antacid), paper, mail (that’s what the corner under my windshield is for), steroid cream, a tennis ball for my sciatica nerve pain, much less a drink in the attached cup holder! One of the things GMC has done that is totally unreasonable is doing away with the slide-out pocket feature in the sunvisor that once extended to block the sun while driving. I keep saying I’m going to get a clothespin & piece of cardboard to use since these vehicles no longer offer this important feature-going to solve my problem “MacGuyver” style! Getting back to the reason for this blog. My Yukon has third row seating that lies down & the middle row does as well. I often have to lay the seats down due to hauling either farm equipment or Berry Patch stuff. The lever that I use to perform this operation has a little black protective piece on the handle so you can grasp it without it slicing into your fingers. Guess what? That little black piece comes off every time you look at it! There are four of these in my SUV, they get lost all the time. Why wouldn’t they be made to stay on there permanently? There is no reason in the world for those little pieces the size of a piece of hard candy to come off. I’m going to have to breakout the super glue. Not only that, but over the last six weeks, my Yukon has been on its death bed. They say bad luck comes in 3’s. My transmission went out, windshield got busted, & had a dead battery, let’s not forget the lightning strike I survived in my car! Hopefully my bad luck streak is over. Not only do women need to design vehicles, we need to design parking lots. A good majority of cars on the roads these days are SUV’s, vans, or big trucks. My favorite saying when I try to squeeze the Yukon in tight quarters at a store is, “this ain’t no Fiesta”! Major adjustments in this world need to happen & women are the ones to make it happen.
One of Coleman’s favorite childhood toys was a Sit-n-Spin. It wasn’t for the dynamic spin of the toy, it was because the round piece also known as the stirring wheel came off. Coleman loved to take things apart as a toddler/child. I would be in the kitchen cooking or in the bedroom making the bed & here his little self would come along with the steering wheel in hand! Now why I would like to ask the designer of the famous toy would they make it so the top came off? For years it was made as a whole toy, now it’s two parts. It was sort of dangerous as a two piece toy, the boys always tried to stand on the plastic stick piece that held the steering wheel. I think I got sick of worrying about them doing just that that I threw it out the door one day. There were dozens of toys over the years that I wish I could think of now that came apart for unknown reasons & didn’t need to nor should they of. We have gone through more gorilla glue & super glue over the years than most. My Daddy’s favorite sayings about the kids when they were younger were “here comes the wrecking crew” & “they can tear up an anvil”. Companies made it too easy for them to tear things up, Daddy! 🤣
My next gripe is with my washing machine (long rant). Washing clothes is one of my passions. I hang nearly everything we own out on my clothesline. I am such a psycho clothesline hanger-outer that I even hangout clothes when the temperature is in the 20’s like it was this past week. All colors must be hung in like order, all shirts with shirts, shorts with shorts & so on. Hanging out clothes is peaceful & helps the earth (I’m part hippie). I’m all for environmental provisions, but the washing machines on the market now are trash. I’ve been through multiple & returned one after having it for a year-got a complete refund, too. After Lee & I got married in 1998, we got a washing machine & dryer set. We still have the same dryer since it is rarely used. As our family grew & our needs changed, we realized a new washer was a must. We went to Lowe’s & picked out the largest capacity washing machine made, it was a Whirlpool & did not have an agitator. I chose this one because Jack slept with us due to the large amount of seizures he had during the nighttime hours. It was almost every night that Jack would seize & lose bladder function. We have a king size bed & I would have to go to the laundromat so often to use their “big boy” washing machine since our comforter was so large, it made sense to buy the largest machine washing known to man because going to the laundromat was getting expensive, quickly. My “Cabrio” (name of washer) was beautiful, I was so proud. Unfortunately, it was then that I would learn about the new energy efficient products that were just placed on the market, the low fill washing machine & low flow toilets (which at that time were trash). I would wash in my sleek new machine & part of the clothes would come out dry & stains would still be in the clothes. After a year of cussing this machine, I called Lowe’s to complain about how very sorry it really was, they nicely offered a full refund. So then I bought a regular washing machine with an agitator, but it was still a low fill machine. It was just okay, still not like our first machine. This summer, it went out. Instead of repairing it, I decided to buy another one figuring the energy efficient ones had improved. This time I went with Maytag. It again was the largest on the floor, push buttons, agitator, met most of my requirements. Oh my Lord, I hate that thing with a passion! It is NOT efficient in my humble opinion, nor does it use enough water to actually clean clothes, & the clothes are so wrinkled when they come out, it looks like they have been stuffed down in the bottom of a Ava’s book bag for a month. Not only that, my blooming Maytag washing machine runs all durn day. Before I got this hunk of metal, I could wash a load in about 35 minutes. Now, I have to plan the night before, load the washer, set the timer because it runs for an hour or longer. There is a minute countdown on the washing machine so when you start a load it will say 55 minutes, after 15 minutes, it could go up to 58 minutes, 1/2 hour later, it may only be at 45 minutes. This thing is beyond foolish. If you use the bedding setting, it estimates an hour & 15 minutes to wash, how absurd! When using the delicates setting & the lowest setting possible for wrinkle control, my clothes still come out looking like this: 
Another thing I’m baffled about with this washer is the cold wash setting. It says cold wash on the dial, but the water temp starts on hot. How is that a cold wash? I’m not sure what this washing machine actually does other than cause me duress! It runs all day & I think it runs just to dampen my clothes a little bit & wrinkle our clothes! I take anything that is semi-good (outside of my Berry Patch shirts) to Mama when the stains won’t come out. Even she hates my washing machine!
Onto the next destructible thing. I don’t drink coffee at all, that’s Lee’s passion & I only make it (on timer of course) on school mornings for him. We’ve had a Keurig that broke, a Mr. Coffee that broke, I literally just bought a coffeemaker from Aldi a month ago & now it has broken. The brewers are used so infrequently that I would think they could hold up, it’s not we are using them morning, noon, & night. Just today I went to return the coffee pot I purchased at Aldi & guess what I did in the parking lot before I ever made it inside the store? Dropped the glass carafe & broke it. Then I couldn’t return it. My life! “They” just don’t make nothing no count any more. Seems like we are running to Walmart or Lowe’s constantly to get a new coffee pot, curling iron, microwave, & even refrigerator. When we moved in the house we live in now, which was about 10 years ago, we purchased a Samsung refrigerator, one of the worst mistakes of our lives. This is a picture of Lee thawing out Samsung’s finest appliance with my hairdryer & a fan. Lee did this for years, usually once a month until we finally broke down & purchased another one last summer.
Samsung has caused many a problem within our home & we do not advise the purchase of a Samsung refrigerator. So far, Whirlpool is holding out strong.
In closing, I hope someone reads this that designs the interior of cars, parking lots, toys, & appliances, maybe they will ask for my design ideas. The destruction of things is real, the destruction of expensive things is even worse, nothing is made to last any more. Good ol’ American constructed, lifetime & beyond products are gone. Wouldn’t it be nice if our hard earned money was actually invested in purchases like it used to be when folks bought one refrigerator & one stove when they got married. People died before their frig could! Everything is too disposable in a non-disposable world. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep the hairdryer handy just in case the Whirlpool decides to freeze over & the superglue closer.
P.S. If your washing machine, toilet, dryer, or refrigerator stops working, go to a yard sale to make your next purchase, you won’t be sorry. The older it is, the better!
Cruel & Unusual Circumstances 
I can identify with your indestructible observations 😀
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I have the Cabrio as well! I despise it and fuss every time I use it. They definitely don’t make things like they use to.
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