Yeah, I have an evil Satan-toilet, too. Here goes… THe seat cover is giving up the ghost gradually, and needs replacing in the worst way. The flusher mechanism is also in it’s death throes, to the point where I have to hold down the lever for about ten seconds to make sure that what goes down stays down. It’s attached to the floor by what appears to be caulk (not the bolts that I’m used to seeing). In a word, my toilet must be in league with yours, because I’m pretty bleeding sure of a Great Toilet Conspiracy out to force me to do my dirty work out in the pasture behind my house.
You don’t happen to have garlic and holy water, do you?
Regarding telephones & the National Geographic story about the man in the Ozarks who refused to get a telephone, though the line ran by his house. “Why would I want a bell in my house,” he asked, “that anyone in the world could ring?”
I just love it when I get home and discover that my phone has not rung & nobody has left any messages for me. A pager is even worse, in that it is a bell that you can’t even get away from.
The Dishwasher. I couldn’t agree more with the above statements. Even if only one plate comes out with food still stuck to it, I feel like I have to hand wash the entire load. And I realize that those are just hard water spots on my glasses, but it sure does look like somebody sneezed on my drinking glasses. Ick.
[Ed Begley Jr. Mode]
The worst thing about the dishwasher is how incredibly wasteful it is considering the half-assed job it does. Running the dishwasher takes something like an hour (longer if you use the drying cycle) just to wash a load of dishes that I could do by hand in 10 minutes, and with a LOT less water. And you’re not just running the dishwasher, either- you’re running the water heater as well. That’s TWO major appliances sucking up energy to partially clean a dozen or so plates & glasses. What’s that? You run the drying cycle too? That’s three major appliances you’re running now!
[/Ed Begley Jr. Mode]
Agree with the electric can opener, although it should be moved to a category with wheelchairs & walkers- things that disabled or arthritic people need.
Sort of agree about the toaster. I can (and do sometimes) use the oven to toast bread, but the toaster just does it so well. Plus, the oven doesn’t shut off once the bread has turned into toast, and doesn’t open up and slide the toast out at me like the toaster does.
Food Processors that are supposed to chop & dice everything but then require careful disassembly and detailed cleaning of a dozen little blades & snap-on thingies. I still know how to use my cleaver to chop onions, thankyouverymuch. And once I’m done with it, a quick wrinse with hot soapy water and it’s back into the drawer.
Wow… I had no idea that so many people hated dishwashers and electric can openers.
I think of a dishwasher as an essential piece of equipment. No human should ever have to spend time with their hands in filthy, stagnant water scrubbing crud off dishes. Here’s a clue, folks: rinse the dishes off with hot water when you finish with them, then put them in the dishwasher. They’ll come out clean every time.
Electric can openers - what, I should have to open cans by hand to prove to you how non-lazy I am? Not that I eat anything that comes in a can anyway, but if I did, you can rest assured I’d have an electric can opener.
As for telephones, cell phones and beepers: christ, people, turn them off if you don’t want to be bothered by them. Get caller ID and/or an answering machine if you want to be selective about who you talk to. If telemarketers annoy you, start your answering machine messages with those “boo-dee-DEEP!” tones that preceed messages like “The number you have reached is no longer in service.” The auto-dialers telemarketers use detect these tones and permanently remove the number, thinking it’s out of service. There’s no reason anyone has to lose out on the benefits of technology just because, when used improperly, it can be annoying.
Oh, and National Kegger - what’s your problem with palm pilots? I should carry around a paper notebook because you feel more comfortable with one?
Electric can-openers are the work of the devil. Let’s see, they take up counter space, a power outlet, are loud, and don’t even save any time! Give me a good olde Swing-A-Way, and I’m happy as a clam.
Another appliance I really dislike are those little stick blender thingies. For the amount of food you can process with them tiny blades, the cleanup required is just ridiculous.
And don’t get me started on those cheap imitation mandolins…
All I can figure is that a) You don’t often cook, therefore you don’t have many dirty dishes or b) you have the oldest, skankiest, POS dishwasher in existance. I haven’t used a dishwasher in ten years that has required rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. With dirty pots, I just make sure all the chunks are gone. Things rarely come out dirty, and when they do, it’s still easier just to wash that one thing that came out dirty rather than hand washing the whole load. There’s just no way on earth you can get dishes as clean doing them by hand - think of how hot the water is in the dishwasher! No way on earth you’re going to tell me that cleaning dishes in dirty, greasy, lukewarm water is as good as a dishwasher.
In my perfect kitchen, I’ll have 6 dishwashers. I cook, and mine is constantly full. I LOVE my dishwasher!
My hate list is pretty short: Electric Stoves. Complete waste of time. There’s no way I can cook on one of these. Plus, I keep burning things because I forget when you turn the burner off, it takes ten minutes to actually TURN OFF. Mr. Athena used to live in an apartment with an electric stove, and I kept turning off the burner and leaving the pan on it. Not that it mattered much - the food was ruined anyways since I could never get the burner to the right temperature fast enough.
Flodnak: The newer (say, in the last ten years) gas stoves are quite easy to clean. Mine is much easier than an electric stove. And what’s this about open flames? You can’t tell me that a gas flame is any more or less dangerous than a red-hot electric burner.
I agree with you, though, on the electric oven. I have a dual fuel stove - gas on top, electric convection oven on the bottom. Never have tried induction, but I’ve heard it’s pretty cool.
How about part of an appliance, automatic ice cube makers. Why can’t you just fill up an ice cube tray and put it in the damm freezer. Ok, I can see the use of them if you use 33,000,000,000 ice cubes in a day or if you are a penguin, but otherwise just make the fucking ice cubes yourself it’s an easy recipie I swear…
Vacuums. I hate them more than Scylla hates the Amish. I’m pretty sure I have some canine DNA from an old dog bite or something, because first I cock my head at an angle when I hear the noise, then I leave the room whining.
I assume if the damn thing is running long enough, I will bark at it and bite the hose.
Its the noise that gets to me. The horrible, whirring, nails-on-a-chalkboard, dentist’s drill, godawful noise. When my neighbors vaccuum, especially upstairs, I grind my molars to little stumps as I turn the TV volume ever upward.
I would rather crawl a half mile over broken glass, naked garden slugs, and red-hot thumb tacks with the prospect of being whacked repeatedly with a nine iron at the end of said crawl, than zip once around the house with the vacuum.
Yeah, I always know the people who don’t have an ice maker. They’re the ones that when you go over to their house, they don’t give you any ice in your drinks. You can’t reasonably expect to keep enough ice in your freezer for drinks with ice for more than 2-3 people in an evening. Forget about it completely if you want to make frozen drinks. And let’s not forget ice buckets (yes, I probably use an ice bucket on average once/week) and ice baths so that your steamed veggies stay crisp and not overcooked.
Once again, I think the people complaining about the appliances are the ones who never cook anything!
Exactly- they are just serious overkill. And if I’ve got to wrinse of each plate before putting in the dishwasher, why not just pick up a scrubby and spend the extra 10 seconds washing to damned plate? Tonight’s dinner for two: Two plates, two salad bowls, two forks & two knives. Total hand washing time (yes I actually timed it just for this thread): 90 seconds. Then I sit them in the top rack of the DW to dry without spots.
I did have a skillet, saucepan, cleaver & stirring spoon to wash also but those were washed as soon as I was done with them on the stovetop (before dinner). If I include the tiem it took to wash those, let’s add maybe another two minutes (pots & pans come clean with almost no scrubbing if you do it while they’re still hot from the stove).
I cook quite a lot, it’s one of my hobbies.
I just feel that for my needs, a dishwasher is a huge waste of time, money, energy, and makes a loud noise for an hour that you can hear everywhere in my house.
Granted, if I cooked & cleaned up after a family of six every day I might change my tune, but for my purposes the dishwasher is an evil machine that takes up valuable kitchen realestate.
