How Much is that Fridge in the Window?

Here is a free, timely Public Service Announcement from me to you (along with: always tip your cabdriver, never criticize Harry Potter or Nigel Barker, and remember to tell your significant other about the phone messages you played back sometime last week) -

The second you even think about purchasing a house, start putting some money on the side each month for a Appliance Replacement Fund (ARF). You may have to cash out that secret Fun Money checking account or sell your beloved Star Wars figures (Darth Vader with a 'double-retractable' lightsaber goes for over $7,000 - who knew?), but you'll thank me eventually. No one ever told me that once we finally signed the last page of our mortgage that the clock started ticking on our dishwasher, clothes dryer, refrigerator...basically, anything that costs over $500 in our home.

Perhaps I was really oblivious as a kid, but I never saw my parents go out and buy any home appliances. Maybe they just tricked me by buying the same color each time, but I just thought they lasted forever. Now, I know that forever actually lasts approximately 10-12 years, depending on care and maintenance. (Check this out - and you'll be having your last Starbucks today...)

Tonight, we went to our local department store and started checking out the refrigerators. I counted literally over 50 different models - all with different configurations of open door alarms, ice-dispensers, and full extension drawers for your fruit platters - errmm, leftover pizza. Throw in the options of French doors and bottom freezers, and you'll run to your local car dealer for a little relief.

They are sneaky buggers, these appliance salesmen - they hook up the most expensive ones so that when you open the door, the lights turn on. And it's not just a single 40-watt-er in the corner, either - we're talking Tron-like 'theater lighting' throughout the entire fridge. Couple that with what I swear is the refrigerator equivalent of 'the new car smell', and, well, I'm pulling out my wallet even before we open the freezer with the Acceler-Ice feature and the Dual Magna Seal Gasket System.

Thank goodness our favorite salesman (clothes dryer, stove delivered the day before we hosted Thanksgiving) was not there tonight. That will buy us a few extra days to figure out just which of our body parts is rather unnecessary and/or redundant - I knew that setting up that Seller's Account on Ebay would come in useful one of these days...