Sam-Song, Second Verse or What is Old is New Again

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for retro-new appliances

Maybe it is because I have lost two major appliances (count them two) in the last two months but I have begun to pay more attention to commercials on television, especially appliance commercials.

My favorite, and the one that makes me laugh the most, is the new Sam-Sung washer.  There is a young (I wonder why they never use granny types?) female (always) who seems to have effortlessly mastered the electronic control panel at the top of the machine and has her wash vibrating along.  Hubby comes in with a filthy rag/jeans/blanket type thing.  “No problem.  I’ll just open this little door and add it to the wash,” she says confidently.  “What, “questions the hubby?  You can add items once the machine has already started?”  “Yes, it is the new Sam Sung addition.”

Now folks, especially those of you under the age of forty, this is not something new.  My kids have added things to the wash for years and their daddy has the pink dyed underwear to prove it.  This is not something new.  You just lift the lid to the old washing machine and throw it in.  In the past I have added that just found dirty sock to the rinse cycle once the wash cycle has already finished.  In fact, I have added that hand washed delicate nightie to the spin cycle at the last minute.  Ok, you have to trick the machine and push down the little do-hickey thing where the lid attaches but you can do it.

But even before my washing machine, adding clothes to the wash was not something new.  As long as there was room in the wash pot, my grandmother would let you toss clothes in at the last minute.  She just threw another log under the pot and punched a few minutes longer with her laundry stick.

I guess the engineers at Same-Song never did laundry at their Granny’s.  Or maybe they were desperate to make their machine “different” from the others on the market.  Or maybe they didn’t know how to write the bi-ornery code with computer gig-a-bites to disengage the electronic code for LIFT LID. 

Same song, second verse.

By the way my dryer is taking twice as long to dry clothes these days; depression I imagine.  My grandson offered to get me a new solar dryer he saw advertised on PBS.  For $19.99 plus shipping and handling you get 25 feet of hemp rope, and 44 wooden spring loaded clamps.  Poles sold separately.

Same song, third verse.