Monday, March 26, 2012

Hate the Throw Away Society

I want someone who has a shop to fix power chairs and toasters!

I’m on a broom. I think that a big part of the problem with our society today is that we’ve become a throw-away society. Where are the guys that fix stuff so you don’t just have to toss your toaster or clock?

Last night my husband had a television emergency. The sound went out on the television in his den. When I say emergency, I’m not kidding. Despite it being seven at night he clapped his cap on his head and went in search of a replacement. He told me he was going to Goodwill first, but I’m not sure he bothered. When I was a child my father gathered up all the tubes and we went to Lake Hills Drug store to test them. If that didn’t solve the problem the "television repairman" was called. Remember him?

Later when TVs became smaller and portable there were shops you could take them to. Or take your microwave. I drove my microwave from Nahcotta to Bellevue to get it fixed in 1989. We didn’t just toss stuff and go fuel big business, we put money in the hands of the guys who came back from WWII and knew how to fix things.

My nearly ninety-year-old mother’s motorized recliner was on the fritz. Sometimes it worked and put the foot rest down or lifted her to a nearly standing position. Sometimes she hds to crawl out. The fact that sometimes it works and others not so much led me to believe that it was a wiring problem that would be fixable if we knew how or knew someone with the expertise to do it. We found another used chair on Craig's List and spent an evening in the wilds of Pierce County getting it. In all likelihood her otherwise perfectly serviceable first chair will go to the Ilwaco thrift store at best or the landfill at worst.

It is depressing to me that we are forced to line the pockets of manufacturers replacing toasters, TVs, and microwave and tossing the outdated or nonfunctioning items into the garbage. At least there are organizations that will take computers and cell phones to recycle the metal in them, but I want someone who has a shop to fix power chairs and toasters!