Warming Up

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Monday 9th June 2003

I went to John Lewis to try and buy a new washing machine.
There were about thirty different machines on display and I looked at them all and they kind of looked pretty similar really. Some were silver, some were white, the Dyson one was multi-coloured and truly ugly, but does that really matter? It’s a washing machine. It’s going in a little cubby hole in my basement. No-one is ever going to see it.
So how do you choose which washing machine is best? They had different features and one was even all computerised and some of them could spin faster than others. But spin speeds and over-designed knobs and dials don’t tell you what you need to know – does it get shit out of clothes? By “shit” I mean any stain, though shit itself is one of the main stains that you really want to know that a washing machine is going to deal with.
Rather than being called the “Whirlpool 1500” which tells me nothing, it would have been easier if the were just called the “Hotpoint Gets Shit Out of Clothes Extremely Efficiently” or the “Hoover, Pretty Good At Removing Shit, Though Some Shit May Remain Which Is Why It Is A Hundred Pounds Cheaper Than The Others” or the “Zanussi, Really Rubbish At Removing Shit, But Still Expensive Because It Looks Really Cool And Plays A Song When The Wash Is Over.”
Then I’d know what I was getting and could make a choice based on the facts.
Instead I looked at them all, went away, came back, looked at them all again. Made a confused face and went home.
Which isn’t going to get the shit out of my undergarments.