Keeping businesses in business

It seemed a simple enough errand: run by the hardware store and get a replacement cord for my parents' electric teakettle.

My parents are of the instant coffee generation. For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, they think instant coffee tastes just fine. This teakettle I gave them years ago heats the water fast, and best of all, cuts off when it's done, thus eliminating the inevitable mistake of melting down a dry kettle on the stove. They love their teakettle, but the cord had gone bad. I was about to get an education.

The hardware store had no such cord, so I went to Lowe's and was told that manufacturers make them so that they are not interchangeable. You have to order a cord from the manufacturer or throw the whole appliance in the trash. I was so incredulous I stopped to talk to those really smart guys at Electric Connection. Could it possibly be true that simple appliance cords are not interchangeable, that I am supposed to spend a half hour on the internet tracking down a cord, giving all sorts of model numbers and other nonsense, only to be told in the end that it will either cost $20 including shipping or, more likely, that my appliance is too old, and they no longer stock what I need-

Now I was mad. Whatever happened to frugality- Whatever happened to fixing things so they don't clutter the landfill- I had the old cord with me, and the smart guys at Electric Connection could see that it was the end that goes into the wall that was bad. That end is standard, so I could buy a new plug and attach it to my old cord. With my purchase in hand, I went to a friend who knows all sorts of things about electricity and has electrician's tools. He taught me how to cut off the old cord and put this new plug on.

Now I have a working teakettle ready to make more hot water for Taster's Choice coffee. Had I not had a friend with electrician's skills, I would have been out of luck.

On my way home with my newly repaired cord I got to thinking about all the skills I don't have and all of the products that are made unnecessarily complex purely to make me spend more money. There is absolutely no reason why all appliance cords couldn't be standardized, but then everything has been made more complicated. Last year my furnace needed a little diddly part that I bet didn't cost the Chinese or whoever more than $2.00 to make, but the plumber said I had to have a new one of these, and only the manufacturer could supply me with it, and that will be $200 plus labor, thank you very much. It was pay or freeze. I paid.

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York is currently running an exhibit of products designed for poor people in poor countries. These are inexpensive, usually low-tech solutions to everyday problems. They have a 20-gallon drum with a hole in the middle like a big tire. For people who have to haul their water from a well or river, being able to transport 20 gallons at once by putting a rope through this drum and rolling it along sure beats carrying a few gallons in a jug. They are exhibiting inexpensive, solar-powered computers and a $100 house.

I think it is terrific that there are people out there designing useful, inexpensive products for the 90 percent of the world's people who can't afford what I routinely buy, but, to be honest, I would love some of this simple, inexpensive technology for myself.

Maybe I am just being an ungrateful, grumpy Luddite, but I am getting a little weary of holding up my end to keep auto and appliance manufacturers in business.

Just a few generations back people understood how most of what they used everyday worked. They knew how to fix it when it didn't. To be sure, people dumped a lot of tasks at the first opportunity. They were happy not to have to weave their own cloth or make shoes. Specialization of labor was a good thing.

I don't really want to build my own house, but I would love to have the feeling that I sort of know how things work and could get by in a pinch. I absolutely hate it when manufacturers make simple things complicated so I cannot fix them or even understand them and must rely on experts or make contributions to my local landfill.

I am kind of proud of my teakettle cord repair job. I can't wait to hear my parents tell all their friends how I fixed their kettle. They will beam. I will beam. "That daughter of ours can do anything." I only wish it were true. 

Patricia Hunt is a Mary Baldwin College chaplain and Staunton resident.