APPLIANCE NO-NOS

Things tend to come in threes, it’s said, and this has proved true here these last few weeks when we’ve replaced our vacuum cleaner, our toaster oven, and the toaster.

My new vacuum, replacing a 27-pound monster which did a super job but gave my arm fits because it wanted to go only forward not backward, is an 11 pound Dyson DC24. Light, compact, absolutely, positively wonderful. A great deal of thinking went in to its foolproof design. 

The Dyson DC24 - I do recommend it!

There’s the operative word for this essay: foolproof. Too many fools are buying appliances these days. You can tell by the warnings in the instruction booklets: they have to include warnings so that users will not do stupid things with the machine. I’m sure they have include the warnings because they’ve already run into, maybe have already been sued by users who misused the appliance.  The Dyson is so well engineered that there’s only one warning: when vacuuming stairs leave the vacuum at the bottom, not the top of the stairs where you could pull it over on yourself.  That sounds logical to me.

The toaster, on the other hand, has warnings that absolutely amazed me. Users are warned:

        Do not immerse toaster in water or run water into toaster

                (pictured is water running into the toaster from a hose.)

        Do not operate toaster under or around any flammable materials

                (pictured is the toaster near curtains.)

        Do not insert objects into the toaster

                (Pictured is someone digging out the toast with a fork.)

        Do not place the toaster in the dishwasher

                (yep! With a picture to match!)

The toaster oven – we needed a new one because the old one, though it worked just fine, was giving off that ‘electrical’ smell -  has just about the same warnings as the toaster, and adds:

        Do not place on or near a hot gas or electric burner, or in a heated oven

Good grief why would someone immerse a toaster in water? I can guess why they’d place it in the dishwasher or would put the toaster oven in a regular oven: for storage.  Then they forgot the appliance was in there and turned the dishwasher on! And then they probably sued the manufacturer.

                    
 

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”

                                                        Quote by Douglas Adams