Which appliance couldn't you live without?

"Mummy, what would you do without a washing machine?"

This was an interesting question asked by my son the other day.  As usual, I was moaning about the constant stream of washing that faces me on a daily basis and he was genuinely interested to hear about how washing was carried out in the 'old days'. I explained to him how washing used to be done but that if the washing machine broke, I wouldn't be able to cope with hand washing everything and I would use other people's machines or go to a Launderette (I had to explain what one of those is too).  He seemed a bit disappointed with that response and wandered off to look for something more interesting to amuse himself with.

The harsh reality of modern day is that we are more and more dependent on our kitchen appliances.  I have a love hate relationship with most of them and I seem to get through more than my fair share of appliances; big and small.  We have had a new washing machine every couple of years and I am on tumble dryer number two as well. This may seem indulgent, however, every time a washing machine has broken, it hasn't been worth repairing and as my last tumble dryer was seven years old, so I figured that it had earned a rest.

Last year was a bad year for the appliances in our house generally.  We replaced the tumble drier at the beginning of the year and shortly after that, we had an exploding toaster.  Shortly followed by the demise of my much loved vacuum cleaner, we then had to replace our fridge freezer.  By the summer, we felt as though we had spent so much time online looking at different appliances and we were waiting for the next thing to break down.

It finally did in the summer holidays when our dishwasher coughed and spluttered through its last set of dirty dishes, without cleaning them too.  At the time, our bank account was suffering from overuse due to excessive summer holiday spending and so we decided to live without a dishwasher for a while and see how we managed.

This was met by a surprising reaction from a lot of people, most of whom couldn't imagine life without a dishwasher.  Some went as far as to say that they could live without most of their appliances but not their dishwasher.

I was genuinely astounded by this.  We can all manage without our appliances if we had to, but some are more essential than others.  As I said earlier, a washing machine would leave a large hole and a huge inconvenience as I do at least one load of washing every day and most days I do two.  A hoover would also be missed; I don't have time to hoover daily, but if we didn't have a hoover, I dread to think what sort of a state this house would be in.

So could I live without a dishwasher?  Well of course the answer was yes, we reluctantly got back into the habit of washing everything by hand and my hands quickly went back to being like sandpaper again from frequently being in water.  

But I have to say that I have really missed the dishwasher and although it has become normal to wash everything up by hand, there are times when I miss being able to throw everything in before I go to work in the morning and when you have big meals and there are so many dishes and pots that you know that you will be standing in front of the sink for hours.

Fortunately, we haven't had anything else go wrong since then, so we decided that it would be new year, new dishwasher.  It is ridiculous that I am so excited about having a new dishwasher again and as I'm not the most patient of people when it comes to getting anything new, I have spent the last two weeks looking at the huge range of dishwashers that are available in Argos.  I was lucky to pick up a really good model in the sale for under two hundred pounds and it will be arriving at the end of next week.  I can't wait and neither can my poor over dishwashed hands.

Hopefully, after that, our appliances will continue to do their much appreciated jobs for a few months at least and I will be training the teen about how to open the dishwasher and put dirty dishes in, as he seems to conveniently forget where the kitchen is when there is washing up to do, let alone do anything with it.

I would be interested to know which appliance you couldn't live without; are you devoted to your dishwasher, wild about your washing machine or would be terrified without your tumble dryer?  Or are we all just a little bit to dependent on our precious appliances?