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The Unexpected Life-Gaps After Divorce
Building a new life from the appliances up
The store manager says the whole country could run out of appliances soon. Looking around at the empty shelves you can tell it’s not just a sales pitch.
“The top-loader washing machines will be the first to go,” he says. You make astonished noises. It seems the appropriate response to a whiteware apocalypse. “If your machine breaks, that’s it. Hand washing.”
You’re tempted to buy a washing machine right there and then, put it on layby or store-credit with the “one-year interest free” they lure you in with, even though your front-loader is only a few years old and perfectly fine.
“Handwashing or a front-loader,” he says. “But no-one seems to like those.”
“I have a front-loader,” you say.
He makes astonished noises too, impressed by your progressive stance on washing machines; he talks about traditional values and buying habits of small-town folk.
There are other appliance shortages too. There’s only one electric beater left, for example — it’s what you’ve come in to buy. All the cheaper beaters are gone; their low-cost labels bragging about deals you could have had.
