Is there anything more frustrating than waiting at home for the delivery of a new household appliance? If you were trying to work a paid job at the same time, undoubtedly you'd be more frustrated than I am today, but even so, as midday approaches, I'm becoming a bit 'tetchy'. What is it with companies that can't possibly give you a more specific delivery time than "Thursday"?

With our 13 yr old washing machine becoming more and more 'unbalanced' in the spin cycle (with a loud *bang, bang, clunk* as it stopped) it was diagnosed ($50 later) as being not worth fixing. Better to put the money a new gear box would cost towards a new machine, he said. It's a bit sad that 13 years out of a machine is considered a good run these days. (Cue "They don't make things like they used to!!" line.)

So, after going through the predictable angst of deciding 'wtf' to get (top loader vs front loader mainly, but then which brand/model etc... ) we bit the bullet and ordered one. It's bigger than the last one. A top loader still... for many reasons, but mainly the part where the repairman told me that you couldn't give him a frontloader (from his 'repair' perspective.) It's a compromise on water efficiency. Better than the old top loaders, not quite as good as front loaders. 8.5kg capacity - it'll do all the sheets for the family, for example, in one load rather than two and a half, which has got to be a good thing, water wise and time wise.

If and when it gets here. I haven't been game to disconnect the old one in case they don't show today, in which case I'll be very shitty, but at least I'll still be able to wash. (Old Faithful is still doing it's stuff, albeit now with a the sound of the gearbox groaning and screeching as it knocks itself out of balance.)

Meanwhile, I can't go for a walk. I don't want to go upstairs and vacuum in case I don't hear the door. I'm just... waiting.

******
Edited to add at 2pm:

Luckily I am an impatient girl. About 15 mins ago I decided to ring the store to 'confirm' they were still coming. Ahem! Not on delivery list for today! Turns out the salesperson stuffed up. Charged me the $40 delivery fee, which is on the invoice, but forgot to change some other crucial part of the invoice to 'Delivery' from 'Pick up'. I hadn't picked that up as it wasn't obvious what was just default 'babble' on the invoice.

NOT HAPPY JAN!

Fortunately, and I'll give a thumbs up to the local "Hardly Normal" [popular slang term for the real name of the chain store) delivery manager dude here, because he's sorted it so that the poor driver, now 80km north in Grafton, and returning to Coffs via another delivery on the back road at Glenreagh (same route as our 100 mile ride!)... will then load on our machine and bring it back up here. (about 20km). Which will give me time to safely go out to the shop to pick up something for dinner.

Lucky I didn't decide to ring at about 4 or 5 when they hadn't turned up.

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